I once caught the same bass on a spinner bait 3 times in one day and my buddy caught him again the same day. So 4 times. And they were all hooked in the same spot, poor bass had such a bad wound by the last catch we caught a couple small shad in a throw net and placed them in the bass mouth and it ate them both. Stopped catching him after that.

I was fishing a pond with my cousin this summer and while wading she hooked a nice bass on a beetle spin, it broke her her line. We decided to sit on the bank and catfish for a couple hours then went wading again, bam she lands a 4# with the original beetle spin stuck in its lip.

Well...I caught her AGAIN!

Check the opening post for the story.

Notice the torn soft dorsal -probably from a cormorant bite when she was small.

Her spot patterns for 2008, 2009, 2010:

Today I caught her about 200 yards W of where I caught her in 2008, and a good 600 yards from where I caught her in 2009. (This is a ~35acre reservoir).

In 2008 she took a 4" wacky'd Senko. In 2009, a 6" finesse swimming tail worm. And in 2010 she took a 6" swimming tail worm.

I actually measured her this time and am embarrassed to say she was just over 17". Guess she didn't have 2" of growth from 08 to 09, and I apparently didn't know "what I'm looking at". :-[ In fact, she apparently didn't grow much, if at all, from 09 to '10.

Anyway, when I caught her this time I called out to my buddy, "I know this fish!"

These are the same fish 3 weeks apart. She was 8-2 the first time, 8-7 the second time. I had a picture of her the second time from the same side as the first, but I lost it to a hard drive crash.

We have a small lake in my area stocked with Northern pike and I lost him the first time with one of my favorite lure's and went back the next day and caught him this time not only did I get my lure back but I gained 2 others

Markings are like fingerprints.

I know of one fish I caught twice within a few days.

It was about two pounds, and one of its gills had been severed at the top. That gill was white, and protruded about a half inch beyond the gill plate.

Aside from that damage, the bass appeared to be fat, healthy and well fed. It did seem to tire more quickly than the average bass. Oxygen depletion, maybe?

The markings of every lobster are also distinct. Even though they shed their shell in order to grow, the new, larger, soft shell which forms beneath the old will have the identical colors and markings of the old shell. The new shell will be an enlarged version of the old.

Like the shell fact. Learn something new everyday.

wow .. they all look alike to me .. spotting patterns that is

If you really want to be sure, tag your fish. Somewhere on this site you can buy tags. In the old days we used to use a hole punch and put a hole through the soft tissue of a dorsal or other fin. It leaves a scar or sometimes a little hole, but never seemed to bother the fish. I have caught the same fish on the same bed four years running. We called it bass farming...hahaha. I haven't done it for a while, but thought I might get some tags and do it again just to keep track of some big bass in my local lake.