UrbanRedneck

d**n dude, nice one. Very nice in flight photo of a common merganser. And yes, I have to scroll left and right to see your photo.

Ive got a quick question. How are you judging apparent growth rate? And you talk about age so how are you judging/determining age? Just wondering if you have come up with some sort of year specific/fish specific fin clipping scheme.

Once that heat really sets in I almost never fish during the day, physically I just cant do it. Howver, I love fishing at night in the summer and its a time that I look forward to.

Youve always got a home waiting for you in the world of big bass. Everybody needs a break every now and then. Excellent post, Im stoked for you!

Consistently catching large fish is not luck. Butch Brown gets my vote for best big bass fisherman of all time.

Yep, you learned the hard way as did I. Anytime Im using braid around abrasive cover, especially rocks, I use a longish leader of mono or fluoro.

If an expert can't tell you what it is, what makes you so sure its a fungus? Doesn't look like any true aquatic fungal diseases I've ever seen. Looks more like an encapsulated cyst (the dark center), and necrosis from secondary bacterial infection (the pink and white ring surrounding). The fact that it was in the same location is remarkable. I'll try to find some time, and look at my texts for anything in the ball park. it is weird stuff! I should have known better than to post this photo, sooo many experts here. The disease expert was my advisor from graduate school, hes a slacker and he only looked at the photo. He did not run tests on it, or try to key it out, or look through the multitude of text books he has. He said it was a fungus, which I agreed, the species of which was uncertain. d**n, you people make it so hard to write brief posts, always want the full blown explanation. Here, I know what it really was. The fish was caught in a lake in the middle of bigfoot country. I think that is a scar from bigfoot trying to grab it. Yeah, im pretty sure thats what that is. Maybe the infection was from a claw mark bigfoot left on that fish

What you see in the background is grass in a yard! No, this lesion was caused by a fungus. It was very common for bass to have this on one and sometime each of their gill plates. We saw this on bass for as many years as I was there (I moved away). Very strange because it was always in the same area of the gill plate and always circular. I had never seen this anywhere else until somebody started asking about it here. I even posted those photos on fish disease forums and nobody knew what it was. A fish disease expert at the local university couldnt tell me what it was (but, he only looked at the photos). Very odd stuff.

A while back there was a thread on here asking about an odd lesion on a bass gill plate. I took me a while to find this photo and it appears to be the same type fungus that was being asked about. This lake is the only lake Ive ever seen this, and it was only on the gill plates and always round. Very weird.

Skeptic or not, its well known and well documented through peer reviewed research that the smaller members of the sunfish family readily hybridize with each. For that matter, all closely related members of the sunfish family will hybridize with each. yeah but don't bullsh#&t with me, that is very rare. Unless your lake is "the SHIRE" my man. They don't seek each other out to breed. Thats a fact. I will leave the weirdos to you. LOL! Actually its very common. Whether or not they actually seek each other out is something only they know, and last time I asked I didnt understand what the fish told me.

If you lived in Alabama you might hear people tell you that you caught a green trout.

Skeptic or not, its well known and well documented through peer reviewed research that the smaller members of the sunfish family readily hybridize with each. For that matter, all closely related members of the sunfish family will hybridize with each.

That aint a bluegill.

S*** happens, and its probably happened to all of us. Some fish just up and die after being caught. Its never a good thing, but its especially bad when its a very big fish.

My gut reaction was 7 ish. Shes a deep fish, has a big head, appears to be thick, and we cant even see her belly. Nice avatar bizz. Youll be back.