I pictured that happening and laughed. Been there done that. Even with the bale arm open that has happened. Too busy paying attention elsewhere, heard the noise and looked over just in time to see the rod/reel flip off the cinderblock and head toward the water. The fish took all the line off the spool and kept going. Glad the knot was strong enough to keep the line on the spool else there'd be 150 yards of line in the water attached to a fish. Cranked the arm, recovered a lot of line and then bam up out of the water was a nice 5+ pound largemouth.
Side note, using crab line and a large tri-hook when the bite is slow I've pulled rods, half rods, and lots of lures from bodies of water.
