Today me and my buddy went down the road a little ways to fish a large private lake. This lake is known for big bass, average bass is 3-4lbs. Well we head up near the dam and start throwing deep diving Norman suspending cb's in about 12ft of water. After about 2 hrs. my buddy cast along some of the rip-rap and started a reel and pause retrieve, after about the 2 pause something smashed his bait. He got it up and it was a nice 7lb. largemouth, but when he picked it up out of the water it just stopped moving. It had scars all over its body

and after about an hour of trying to revive it it just died. He ended up taking it home to get it mounted but I'm wondering why this fish died so quickly. Was it shock or stress, or did it have to do with the scars all over its body?????

Where was it hooked (mouth , guts , gills )? Were any of the wounds opened ? Weighing seven pounds , it sure wasn't starving.

It had one treble stuck in its upper lip, the fish looked fine as it was coming up. Although when we did get it up it had an unhealthy looking coloration. You know when a fish dies and it gets a white tint, this is what the fish looked like.

did it smell or fight? You might have snagged a dead fish :-/it just stopped moving. i just caught that umm plain it might be just an old fish.

It was definetly alive when he hooked it but as I said it looked very unhealthy from its coloring and all the scars all over it.  

I just don't get this :-?

Maybe it was not in good shape to begin with. Before it was caught it might be possible that it was sick or just old and the fight up to the boat might have been all it could take and caused it die from shock

I'm guessing that it had been caught recently and the scars were from scrapping against the riprap during the fight.  The bass was dying and your buddy caught it before it went to that big pond in the sky.

If the fish put up a good fight, the lactic build up in the muscle tissu was just too much for the old fish. The scars etc might have caused the fish to catch a virus or a bacteria. Don't worry about it.

I once caught a huge walleye. Anyway, it was not heavy but very long. She was 32 inches in lenght but weighed maybe 7 lbs max. She had a huge head and her stomach was so depleted that there was a long large crease running the length of her belly. She didn't put up a very hard fight....just bulldogging in deep water. I had 4 lb test mono on my reel.

This happened about 20 years ago.  When I talked to biologist in my area about the fish, they said that the walleye was probably over 30 years old.  Their research in my area showed that they could tell the age of the walleye over 24 inches long just according to it's length.  The largest they ever caught was 28 inches and was 28 years old.  I should have kept a few scales to take to the biologists.

when it gets cold out and u caught fish deep the water change has killed some of the smallr 2-3 pound fish i have caught i  was scared it was me but i asked a conservationest he said the shock and cold air it to much your best best is just keep and clean the poor fishy but scars?>>???  the only fish i have ever caught with scar was a 4 pound bass that looked like a grizzly tryed eating it and it was just fine after i but it back???? :-?

My guess it had just received it's december credit card bill.

It could have been when it saw you guys mugs,it scared it so bad it had a heart attack and dird on the spot...LOL (just kiddin' now basspro.I'm sure y'all are two handsome dudes)

LOL, rr... ;D ;D  

8-)  

Let's look at it this way...

We'll put a hook through your lip, drag you fighting 30 feet through the water, yank you up against the side of the boat, keep you out of the water for 5 minutes, and expect you to be fine and dandy.  Its amazing these fish live at all after the abuse we give 'em.  Sometimes, fish just die.

Best bet is a combination of cold water stress, wounds, and stress from being caught, ie, fought, removed from water, etc all played a part and as a whole, where more than the fish could handle.