We caught two 34 and 39 pound cats in Lake Perris (giant mudhole lake in SoCal) back in the late '80s within five minutes of each other using chicken livers. The big one had a whole bunch of rusty hooks in it's lip.
What you do in this situation is not use the rod. Wrap some cloth around your hand and then wrap the line around the cloth and back up, pulling the fish out of the water.
Yes, been there with a barbie rod.
Haven’t been fishing in a while but I regularly caught fish over 20lbs. Wasn’t even a big deal unless it was over 27-28lbs.