Pond Boss Forums FISH & FISHING Show off your catch Aggressive Nest Protection

My son was fishing last night and came to get me so I could help him pull out what he thought was a dead LMB. It was dark and we didn't have any success snagging it as it was hard to see at that point. He grabbed a flashlight and I was able to illuminate the fish well enough that he was able to get a treble hook into it and reel it in. As soon as it came out of the weeds, we both realized it was two fish but still couldn't figure out what we were seeing till we got them near the shore. Our LMB are just starting to get their nests well established and I suspect this was a case of overly aggressive nest defense. The "eatee" was an underweight 13" fish and the "eater" was probably only an inch or so longer but was still alive. Because we weren't sure how long she had been locked up like that, we put her back in immediately after getting them separated and were able to watch her with the flashlight and saw that looked totally fine after a minute of swimming around. She was moving really well later when we looked at her nest again and looks no worse for the wear. The other one, well, not quite so much on the healthy bit. It was dead when we got it out of the winner's mouth so we left it on the bank and put a game camera on a nearby tree to see if anything cool happens.

That's the first time we've ever found something like this on our ponds and it added a really cool element to the evening last night!