I actually caught a Fish Ohio in 1997 but didn't take it to get measured. The reason I let it go were:
1. It was a hot day and it would have stressed a fish that I wasn't keeping.
2. The fact that the only Large Mouth Bass I had taken out of Lake Hodgson was on my family room wall from 1996.
I was fishing the edge of a large weed bed at the south end of the lake. This weed bed comes out from a point between two bays. I cast a night crawler near the edge of the weeds as I was drifting away from the weeds. A Large Mouth Bass took the night crawler and I set the hook. I was fishing fairly heavy tackle so I was able to bring the fish to the boat and net it fairly quickly. I measured it and it was the same length as the one I had caught the year before.
I decided that one Large Mouth Bass on the wall was all I needed so I removed the hook and released it back into the lake to continue growing.
I hope somebody else was able to catch the fish and have the thrill of catching a really special fish. I didn't feel badly about releasing the fish and letting it continue to grow. I didn't turn it in as a Fish Ohio for an award but I knew I had done what was right for the lake. I didn't catch any other Fish Ohio that year or any in 1998.
2 comments:
This is the kind of fishing I like to hear about. You have to be the nicest fisherman I've ever heard of, to think about the stress of a fish and the good of the lake.
I have a question about hooks though. Does it hurt the fish to get hooked? I think about what it's like for us to get hooked with those things. What does the fish feel?
When you take the hook out, does it go away with a sore spot until it heals?
SG: It is actually fairly common that Bass are returned to the lake. The fish have a mucus on there body and as long as it's not remove they heal themselves. If you leave a hook in a fish it will actually produce an acid to dissolve the hook.
Does it hurt to be hooked? It does me for sure. I get as many pokes from the fishes fins as I give them. I use Neosporin all the time to heal my wounds. I had to go to the hospital once to have a hook removed.
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