Bass Fishing Forum - Westernbass.com

Went out to the lake to do some fishing, it was cold and wet. Managed quite a few fish, some mackinaw, & one Giant Smallmouth. The Bite has been more difficult lately.



-The EastBayAnglers-

RIP Smallmouth bass . You might have made it if not kept out of the water so long. ( fish only have a very small amount of blood in their body and bleed out quickly from a gill injury especially if kept out of the water . Turns out water actually helps to close the wound and stop the bleeding .)

It was not the gill he was hooked in the stomach when i removed the hook it started to bleed i lipped him and held him under water for around 4 minutes it stopped bleeding. Then i got a pic the footage is slow motion on the parts with the bass trust me before i even got a pic the first thing was stop the bleeding. I am aware water stops the bleeding and i know this fish was quite lively when i released it swam away.

Funny I've never seen a gut hooked bass bleed like that it is always a wound to the gill structure . I have had bass bleed from their gill that I hooked in the upper lip with a worm or jig hook and I believe this is from a prior gill injury from the last guy that caught it . Bottom line is when a bass loses that amount of blood it is in serious trouble especially if it's a bigger fish . If you really care about catch and release the best chance it has for survival is an immediate release not an angler trying to make it stop bleeding for a picture . Just because the bass swam away on it's own does not mean it survived .

Great video brother. Thanks for sharing and taking the time to put it together. Its unfortunate you get comments like those above. Injured fish are part of fishing. You do your best to prevent it, but it happens. That's the nature of hooking a fish, fighting it, and bringing it to a boat or shoreline. There's one solution to preventing injury to all fish caught by hook and line......don't fish. That's not what we do here, so the those comments shouldn't be what we do here either.

" Its unfortunate you get comments like those above"
Yeah don't you just hate it when people have to point out the obvious . Tell you what why not get a second opinion from a fisheries biologist if you think I'm wrong ? I apparently have more respect the resource than some it appears .

How about respecting another person, let alone another fisherman, should be more important than the potential demise of a single fish? You're dealing with people here. It doesn't change because we're behind a keyboard.

Kyle46N wrote:How about respecting another person, let alone another fisherman, should be more important than the potential demise of a single fish? You're dealing with people here. It doesn't change because we're behind a keyboard.

Kyle's right. Unless you were there when the fish was landed and released, you really can't say what happened.
Either take the man at his word, or have the good manners not to comment.