Most of you here have vastly more fishing experience than I do. Therefore I can only offer my experience on my pond and one observation regarding catching the same fish over and over
I'm not sure we came to any conclusion, but I’ll argue in my ‘don’t catch your fish’ argument that most likely any world class fish has been caught very few times in its life
I think that you are correct and I offer one piece of anecdotal evidence. Remember the huge LMB named Dottie that was foul hooked here in San Diego County (and such a ruckus was raised over)? Dottie had unusual markings and so apparently was somewhat easy to differentiate from other LMB. There are three recorded catches of Dottie. In 2001 she was caught and weighed 20 pounds 10 ounces. In 2003 she was caught and weighed 21 pounds 11.5 ounces. And the famous foul hooking occurred in 2006 when she weighed 25 pounds 1 ounce. Why JHAP did you mention any of this? Have you gone completely off your rocker? Dottie spent her life in Dixon Lake. This is a 72 acre public lake and although that is a decent sized lake by our Pond Boss standards (otherwise we would be named Lake Boss, or Ocean Boss or Really, Really, Big Water Impoundment Boss) it certainly is not large by lake standards. It is a public lake and gets fished fairly heavily. So what struck me about reading about Dottie is that you have this 72 acre lake that gets fairly heavy fishing pressure and yet good old Dottie is on record as being caught only three times from 2001 through 2006. Based upon her size I think it's relatively safe to assume that anytime she was caught it probably was recorded. Obviously, this does not account for the times that she snapped lines which given a fish that large probably occurred a few times. So basically what I'm saying is that I think Aaron is probably right here.
What I wonder, and surely one of you Uber-Fishermen might already know, is with all of the fancy bass tournaments have any records been kept about the same fish being caught over and over? Are any of the large fish at these tournaments ever tagged before releasing? Ewest are there any studies regarding this? (this being data related to the frequency of catching and re-catching of trophy sized fish).
And for my own pond experience: My fish, because they take after their pond owner, are somewhat intelligent and somewhat demented. One day they will strike the same lure over and over as though obsessed with one particular subject (sound familiar?) and then the next day, under very similar fishing conditions, they would not strike that lure even if you bounced it off their head, almost like they have a short attention span (also, sound familiar?). So they do eventually overcome their obsession and learn (keep any comments to yourselves Yolk and Rainman, I'm trying to make a point here). We bought our pond in 2005 and in spring of 2006 I was throwing a lizard lure. The LMB hit it like crazy for a couple of days. Now they won't touch the same lure, I haven't caught a fish on that lure in several years, sure I've tried changing my retrieve and spraying every attractant on it except for Sex Panther Cologne and still no luck. So they definitely learn. JWHAP had a similar experience with a pink bug lure.
I don't feed my the fish at all, they only eat 100% natural and organic food that mother nature provides (well except for half of a baloney sandwich that I dropped in the pond once) so the only experience I have with catching fish that have been fed has been at DIEDs and and Lusk Lodge 2, both of which are very good fisheries I might add. Oh and BTW not feeding my fish has nothing to do with wanting my fish raised on natural and organic food, it's just that I don't want all the hassle and expense of feeding and at times (like now) I am symbolically chained to my desk via the annual government required paper shuffle (please no political comments) and therefore would not be able to maintain a feeder.
Oh and and if this post proves to be completely irrelevant to the subject matter don't blame me for wasting your time, after all you knew who wrote it when you read it and if you read many of my posts then you should know my track record and therefore it's probably YOUR fault that your time was wasted. Which proves that YOU get caught (reading my posts) over and over on the lure (the ridiculous text contained within most of of my posts) and therefore YOU are probably not any smarter than the fish in your pond.
Wow, that took a lot of energy to write. I think I'll go nap now.
