The one that got away

Today I was visiting a spot I'd not been to for a few weeks in hope that the colour had dropped out of it. My chosen method and quarry was in the form of bouncy kopyto shads along the bottom looking for some big perch.
The venue I was fishing has a good head of perch its just timing it right with the colour and conditions.

I could tell straight away when I saw the water that it would be a struggle, about 6" visibility in sometimes over 15 foot depth is not good. Its always worth a go through as predators like the perch don't feed on sight alone.

I managed to get into a few perch in a short flurry of action, managing a couple of better ones with the best just short of 2lb. I then lost a good fish off before continuing to fish the same area, all of a sudden the line went tight and a good fish was on. I could tell straight away this was a big perch probably a 3lber, it was a heavier weight and you could tell by the slower and more powerful head shakes. It started to come towards me but as i expected as it came near it decided to wake up and bolt for the depths. My reel started screaming as the fish drove for the bottom, then without warning the braid gave way at the reel, I looked at the line on the water and it wasn't really moving away so I'm not sure if the fish came off too. I immediately inspected my reel and rod rings for sign of damage but nothing was obvious. There was no reason for the braid to break as the rod i was using was a very soft actioned rod and the reel was screaming so the drag wasn't set to high, it had to be a defect in the braid or just abit of damage to the braid that had gone unnoticed.
A shame the fish might have gone with a hook in its mouth and a shame I didn't get to see what or how big it was, the thing is, I've fished this venue probably more than 50 times and have only had perch and chub, it fought like a perch and not like a chub so my thoughts were on the size of it knowing it could have only been a perch. In fact I've hooked a trout here before but not landed it so it could have possibly been a trout but if it was it would also have been a big one as smaller trout go nuts straight from the off and this fish held its ground at first.

Never mind theres always tomorrow...hopefully some pike on the fly!