Save some room in obscurity for me Dennis!
I'm not killing a big Bass for any reason ever except if it's bleeding badly from a bait- hook, or spent enough that I'm convinced it won't survive... (Not often, with my VS300 & 25 lb. mono getting all my night- time heavy terrain play... 250 & 20 lb. otherwise minimally)
Just don't get "tournaments" for Stripers myself... (You all do as you please of course!). Maybe because I believe large ones are "game- fish," & small- medium ones and farmed ones are "food- fish"
Seeking Large is usually a solitary activity done from Surf in the Dark mostly, and for my own goals only. Do I need a "free" light 7' rod, orr rubber eels whatever size that badly? Do I really need to kill enough (very) big Bass to have a small CHANCE at a new boat?? Do I need or want my name mentioned with a #38 in OTW... even if they did so more often, as Nib asks logically why they don't with a big Mag to fill? (Less room for ads, Nib! Increasingly, OTW is maybe one or two very good Bass articles, & otherwise freshwater/ irrelevant, & mostly ads besides!)
Did anyone see that NE Angling TV show this weekend: where the tubes were used during a "tournament" to keep an 18 lb. Bass alive for hours?... only to have her placed on- the- dock & measured over & over again, length & girth, for at least 2+ minutes out of water, before it was "successfully released?" (To what: croak, & feed crabs under the dock?)
All I personally need after beaching (or boating) my fish, is to see that tail- slap & rush away that tells me she's well, & off to provide more spawns or at least another thrill while 10 lbs. heavier for another competant fisher! (Who I'd hope will release her also, so I can get her 10 pounds heavier again next! And then do the same for you again too... Unless she's the "one" for my wall finally after 10,000+ releases!)
