Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations I Promise.... It really happened!!!!

Last week, I was invited to go fishing at a fellow pond boss's pond. He has the most beautiful 20 acre pond which is a dammed canyon with many fingers.

We were keeping any bass under 14 inches as the goal is to rid the beautiful lake of the numerous smaller fish.

As the day approached the end, my friend caught a small 8 inch bass. We had a conversation about "disabling" the fish and allow a bigger bass to eat well tonight. I learned from the pondboss conference that there are many disabling techniques, but often if you remove a fin, you can impair them enough to become a meal.

We "disabled" the fish, and let him swim off, although not too effectively.

5 minutes later, I had a hit, and low and behold, i caught the SAME darn fish again, even disabled..... it was absolutely Crazy. I don't guess he was as disabled as I thought..and obviously didn't seem to concerned about our presence.


Cheers


Dustin

Joyous times!

I had that happen with a bass too. So it's not unheard of. I knew it was the same bass because it had a distinctive mark on it. Only about 5 minutes between catching it the second time.

Fish are like people: Some don't learn very well.

Clip another fin I guess.

I had that happen at my dad's old pond once with a little bass I caught on a rattle trap. When I first caught him I tossed him back into the milfoil three feet in front of me. On the very next cast he came out of the milfoil and drilled the rattle trap again just as I as about to pull it out of the water. It made me laugh.

We had a bass that lived under the dock for three or four seasons, growing from 8 or 9 inches to probably 16 inches. We named him "Daily" because we would catch him almost daily. It was painful to see him by the middle of the summer because he had so many sores on his lips and mouth. I don't know whatever happened to him. I didn't have the heart to take him out for dinner.

Sounds like Daily would have been an excellent fish to feed some "disabled" bluegill !!

A friend and I were fishing a small pond and he hooked a pretty nice LMB on a top water lure but broke his line. About ten minutes later I got a good hit and when I got it near the shore it spit my and my buddies lure out. I told him he owed me a six pack for retrieving his lure but he never paid up. I also never took him fishin again. Bob-O

Several years ago, while fishing for redfish in a deep hole in the the south louisiana marsh we found a school of 10-12 lb redfish. The people in my boat (and the other 15 boats fishing the same hole) had fishing tackle really meant for 6-8 lb fish. We caught about 20 fish of which over 15 had fresh hooks and fishing line in their mouths; one fish had 3 hooks. When the sun and moon tell fish to eat; they eat! I hear that during peak feeding times they will eat till vomiting then start eating again... Just like the Romans, hehe.

That's a darn good reason not to take him fishing again. I have another one. I took another taxidermist fishing with my cousin and I and we all got skunked. We took him again and got skunked again. I told my cousin we aren't taking that SOB again. (Didn't really like him anyway. LOL) My cousin agreed. We were back into fish again on the next trip without him.

The weird thing is it was typically a sure thing as we were night fishing for trout. With him jack squat. Without him back into the fish. Go figure.

I also took another taxidermist with me, and this time I was catching big bluegills and he wasn't getting a bite fishing withing 4 feet of my slip bobber. Same depth, same bait etc. The only explanation I could come up with was he had skinned out a northern pike a few hours earlier and the scent was still on his hands.

I do know salmon will move if the scent of a bear comes down stream when they are migrating in a stream. Saw it in a published study.