The big losses can be great stories. My friend hooked a huge striper a few years ago, while fishing for blues with a Ballistic Missile no less. It rolled up of the surface after a little bit and we all got a good look at it. Just monstrous. Definitely 50+. And then a grey seal mugged him, and started carrying the fish down the beach. A lady fishing down there just held her knife up to his line and looked at him. He nodded and she cut it, and he just fell to his knees, slumped over. Then the seal slowly drifts and swims back over towards us, and eats the big bass right in front of him while floating on its back.
He was so devastated, but hearing him tell that tale every year is funny as hell.