Thanks for all of the good info!
Especially the range of options from clipping, all of the way up to "platinum-level" tagging with prices.
I always thought it would be informative to have your LMB marked with numbered tags and you could then chart their growth every time you caught each fish. I now think as the fish got bigger, they would get increasingly hook-shy, and the "growth experiment" would get very little data just about the time the LMB were getting to be pond records.
I could see marking being valuable in true fish surveying situations where fish are seined, shocked, or netted for analysis. Otherwise, probably more effort than it is worth?
Does anyone have any good examples where identification gave the pond owner some valuable information?
