NICE ONE

[Smalliebigs]

A kid who I fished with this weekend caught this One. He caught it on a speed craw.....she was  quite the long smallie and had the infamous top of it's tail chewed off??? I have seen this on other fish my friend Hog Wally has caught and it has always perplexed me as what is doing this???...... Al Agnew if you read this can I get an explanation hahahahaha......sorry you are my all things river authority

This was a very legit fish nonetheless as this kid is a very big young man and made it look smaller than what my gay posterior does with the pics.

[tjm]

looks long to me, tail almost looks clipped like a marker

[Smalliebigs]

1 hour ago, tjm said:

looks long to me, tail almost looks clipped like a marker

I know it's wild but, I have seen this on others.....all of the smallies were rather large that I have seen this on.

Possibly they are stuck soo close in a log that something is able to do that to them???.... or some weird bacteria???

either way I have only seen this on smallies 20 inches and bigger but, I have seen it before for sure.  

[snagged in outlet 3]

I saw the same thing two weeks ago on one.  Not a 20'er though.

[Gavin]

That is a nice smallie, good for him. The biologist do clip fins with a scissors when they sample fish, but I would not expect them to take that much off..or to make two cuts. instead of one. Maybe a gar? Dunno.

 

 

[tjm]

11 hours ago, Gavin said:

The biologist do clip fins with a scissors when they sample fish,

This is what occurred to me. It'd be useful in determining a recapture, or possibly growth rate  or.. .  I can't tell from the picture for sure but the notch looks more angular than round, I would expect any bite to be somewhat round.

So, are all the bit/clipped/notched  fish you see in the same drainage or same stretch of river? 

[Smalliebigs]

5 hours ago, tjm said:

This is what occurred to me. It'd be useful in determining a recapture, or possibly growth rate  or.. .  I can't tell from the picture for sure but the notch looks more angular than round, I would expect any bite to be somewhat round.

So, are all the bit/clipped/notched  fish you see in the same drainage or same stretch of river? 

I have seen them in the Meramec and the Bourbeuse, Big and Black rivers

[drew03cmc]

Looks like a nice fish. That tail clipping has to be sampling related I would think. 

[Al Agnew]

Don't know.  It would slightly surprise me if the clipping was done by MDC.  Could be some private individual clipping the fin for his own curiosity.  IF it is manmade, it ticks me off.  I have a problem with mutilating wild fish.

[Smalliebigs]

1 hour ago, Al Agnew said:

Don't know.  It would slightly surprise me if the clipping was done by MDC.  Could be some private individual clipping the fin for his own curiosity.  IF it is manmade, it ticks me off.  I have a problem with mutilating wild fish.

So here are other examples Al...Meramec river fish and also big