My old friend Notch

Just in case you had any doubts that catch and release doesn't make a difference.... Here is a trophy smallmouth from today in the first photo. In the following two photographs is the same trophy smallmouth I caught twice last year. All were caught within five feet of the same spot over the span of eleven months. You can see it is the same fish by the distinctive notch in it's dorsal fin. Smallmouth live a very long time and this fish is probably well over a decade old. And it's a known fact that smallmouth in rivers live in same section of stream their whole lives. IF you practice catch and release on smallmouth bass and give that 17 or 18 incher the precious gift of time you can have trophy smallmouth in your piece of river. I'm not a catch and release nazi and I understand keeping a few channels or some crappie isn't going to hurt a thing. (and it's just plain yummy) But science tells us you cannot do the same thing with stream smallmouth. You might have just as many but they sure as heck won't be big, at least not for another 10 or 15 years.....