I've never seen one like this

[ryan]

Looks like he got away from a Herron when he was younger

[bluebasser86]

So disappointed there's been no, "That's what she said", comments yet.

It's amazing how you can have a fish die on you that appeared to suffer no major injury, then you see a fish missing part of it's dome and obviously doing okay.

[Ham]

All you can do is treat the fish you catch as gently as you can and hope they make it. Some fish survive the worst possible stuff, but most would not. Catch and release WORKS and our fishing is more entertaining for it. Selective harvest works too.

[Sam]

I'll go with the frustrated heron theory, back when that bass was real small.

As regards C & R, I generally target crappie / walleye / white bass and I don't care about eating bass. When I accidentally catch a keeper bass out of Tablerock it'll often have about 8 hook-holes in its' lips, so catch and release is working pretty well. I suspect you guys know all those bass and have them named, though. "Hey, I caught George again this morning over by Point 5. He said to say hi, but he thinks somebody ate Betty!" LOL

Now if we could just get a program to catch on where everybody except me releases slab crappie and keeper walleyes - for the fishery, of course.