On Sept. 8, 1999, while fishing at Clear Lk. Ca., Dee Cowgill caught and released the biggest bass of his life. A 13 lb 2 oz monster ! Up to that point, Dee had never caught a bass over ten pounds, however, later that same day he caught another bass that pulled the scale down to 10 lbs. exactly. Dee was fishing a rock pile, with a live crawdad, when the big fish hit.

this ? Well look at the pictures and decide for yourself. I have yet to hear any doubt from those who have examined the evidence. By the way, we both weighed her on a digital scale, as we do with all our trophy bass.

There are several other small things which we have noted, but these are the biggies. As far as the weight difference goes, when Dee caught her, she had obviously been on a big time feeding binge. Dee reported that she absolutely slammed his crawdad. When I caught her, after being stuck the week before, she had definitely chilled on her feeding. You can see the difference in her belly. Also she hit very lightly.

Of course we realize that someone could catch a big bass, take a few pictures, and then hand it to their buddy for more pictures. First of all, Dee and I have nothing to gain from this story, other than the great testament for the fact that catch and release works ! But also note the following. Dee caught the bass in the afternoon. I caught it in the morning. When Dee caught it, the water was choppy. When I caught it, the water was like glass.

I guess the fact remains, that if a person tried hard enough, there is probably nothing here that couldn't be faked. But it was not. This is a true story, and had Dee not caught and released the largest bass of his life, my largest bass would not have been as big as it was. And the fact that I also released it, means that some other angler might be able to catch and release the largest bass of their life. Who knows, Dee or myself might just catch her again when she weighs 15 lbs or more !

Those pigmentation marks give it away every time !

Well it has been almost a year, and I caught her again. This time on a Castaic Trout lure

(and by the way, there are no trout in Clear Lk., although there are lots of big baitfish, which obviously big mama thought she had found one of )

I seem to catch her at her lower weight times. As it gets closer to fall, and she feeds up for winter.....or next spring when she is full of eggs, she may well weigh close to 14 lbs ! Hopefully I will catch her again then.

Anyway, she gave me just as much of a rush this time, as she did 10 1/2 months ago ! With no less hooping and hollering either, Ha! Ha!

Catch and Release !!!!!

You will have to look close, but if you examine the markings, especially in the stripe pattern, I'm sure you will see that this is the same fish, caught 6 weeks apart. The first time she hit a Castaic Trout, which you can see in her mouth. The second time I caught her about 200 yards away, on a live crawdad.

In retrospect

10/24/03

When I wrote the above articles in the Spring of 2000, I was admittedly amazed, that more than once, we had caught and released the same fish. Was it just luck ? A fluke ? Just a very unlikely coincidence perhaps ??? Logic should have told me that the more fish that my trophy hunting friends and I caught and released, the more of those fish would be re-caught, and of course released again.

So here we are 3 years down the road, and nowadays when we "re-catch" a good fish, and positively identify it through distinguishing features or markings, many of us hardly bat an eye. All this does is reinforce what we already know......

Catch and release works !!!!!

Below are several more caught and released, and re-caught, and re-released fish.

While you are looking at these photos, please ask yourself this question: "How much damage could just a few of my friends and I have done to the trophy bass population, had we chose to kill our big catches ???


This good looking girl weighed 9.6 lbs and was caught at Coyote Res. on a live crawdad.	Note the very dark scale right on her lateral line, about halfway down (in both pics) as well as the divot where the top edge of her tail fin meets the caudal peduncle. This time she weighed 9.5 lbs.


This big girl weighed 12.5 lbs and bit a Castaic trout lure at San Pablo Dam Res......	.....nearly a full year went by before one very observant visitor of TBO, pointed out that this 13.5, was in fact, the same fish as the 12.5 that was caught only 5 weeks earlier. Check out that pectoral fin.... it's a dead on match !


This healthy 9 lb plus fish slammed the Castaic trout at San Pablo Dam Res on a drag that was way too tight, and straightened the hook so badly, I still don't know how I landed her !	Three months later, more than half the lake away, she dropped in to the boat to say hello again. I guess she likes having her pictures taken :-) This time she ate a wad of crawlers. Note the scar below and between her hard and soft rayed dorsal fins.


This fish had a very unusual tail shape and color. Quite obviously a "one-in-a-million" fish. She weighed 9.0 lbs and bit a live night crawler.	......and one year later, here she is again ! This time my buddy Rob caught her on a swimbait ! She weighed 9.4 lbs, and there sure wasn't any question over whether we had seen this fish before ! :-)

Sorry if it seems that I am beating a dead horse here....... but keep in mind that there are probably still many anglers out there, who can hardly conceive of catching and releasing, and then re-catching, and re-releasing a fish.