Was checking my feeders throw this morning when I found a floater. Wasn't happy, but it wasn't a deal breaker til I went out in my tin boat to pull her out.

She was larger than I thought, and had a very distended stomach on one side. I put her in the boat and got the first good look, and that's when I got sad real quick. Turns out, she was right at 26 inches long, and I'm guesstimating around 11 pounds.



After the initial shock wore off, I decided to cut her open and see what was causing the distention.

I'll post the links, so you can look if you wish:

http://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa447/FireIsHot14/stomachclosed800.jpg

http://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa447/FireIsHot14/stomachopen800.jpg

Big girl's eyes were obviously bigger than her stomach. CNBG was 10" long, and caught sideways in her stomach.

So the good news is despite all my best efforts to screw my lake up, it seems to be doing well. Bad news is I lost big girl that showed no signs of ever being caught before.

I moaned and groaned until I remembered how many of you have lost multiple fish this year to the heat and drought. Suddenly, one fish lost didn't seem so bad.

AL