Well just today I netted my new lake record LMB. Another true football. 5 1/2 pounds but only 18 1/2 inch long!! That's the good news...the bad news is I netted her floating dead on the surface!! Looked to be dead maybe a day. I'm at my pond every day and just spotted her about a hour ago. NO SIGNS of trauma and look at that size!! Only thing I can think of is back on January 20th of this year I caught that last "football" lake record CMM posted pictures of for me and I did fight her hard and took lots of pictures. Maybe I stressed her out too much just prior to spawning?? At that time she weighed 5 1/4 pounds and was only 18 inch long. Could be the same fish 4 months later?? This is the first and only dead fish I have ever seen in my pond. What do ya'll think? I will sure be watching for more!!

How old was she? Estimate?

Dang James hate that. Wonder if they can grow too fast- burn the candle from both ends- curious as to what happened. Keep us posted

James, I was saddened today to find a huge CNBG dead on my dock. At first I thought maybe a trespasser had hooked & discarded it, but then I realized that nobody would just leave a fish like that to rot on the dock. Nope, it was my "friend" the GBH, who obviously stabbed a fish that was too big to swallow.

Just one fish, but the kind that could hit 1.5 to 2 lbs someday. Sheesh...

Those lmb were stocked May 14th 2016 and were 4 inch long.So they are almost exactly 3 years old!! I just came back from a overnight trip and checked the pond. No more dead fish. So far so good. Dang Anthropic...I know that must have been sickening.For some strange reason I have not seen my "daily" GBH in about a month since all these big rains. There is a creek that runs behind our pond on timber company property that actually feed all the way to Lake Sam Rayburn. I cannot physically see the creek from my property but it is only about 75 yards from my pond. Maybe my GBH found it a little easier to hunt in that creek for awhile since mine is so muddy from rains.