Thanks for the informative, constructive, inspirational post. It's guys like you that keep this site going. Is this your first post? Welcome to the site! I'm assuming you're the guy that caught the bass... nice fish! Perhaps you aren't aware of the consequences of killing bass of that size. Catch and release is a very large, and widely accepted practice, particularly for bass (just about all of em, sandbass, calico, bay, even largemouth and smallmouth). The reason for this is that many bass species are highly sought after gamefish. Big fish get big because they have certain genes which allow them to evade predators, choose the proper food sources, and be the fittest to survive. Other fish who don't have these genes, simply die before they grow to that size. It is very important to release the larger fish because they can pass on their "genes for survival" to another whole new generation, and that generation will have a better chance of growing to that size someday. So, to say that we are a bunch of hotshots may be true (j/k ;-)) but the reason we catch and release the big bass like that is so that guys like YOU can catch one like that in the future. What would happen if everybody kept all the big fish with the genes to get that big??? There'd be no more big fish!!! Would it make you happier if we killed all the fish with the right genes instead of releasing them so that other people can catch them in the future??? There aren't many things that piss me off, but somebody cussing me out because I practice conservation is where I draw the line.
-Brian