When I got my first look at this bass, my first thought was shark attack! The fish, a 28-incher, give or take, had a gash through its dorsal fin, almost to the backbone. The wound was fresh, but not so fresh that it happened during the fight. As I looked more closely, the cut was too clean and the wrong shape to be a shark or seal bite. My guess is that this fish was swimming too close to the surface when a boat came barreling through and he got whacked by the prop. Even partially filleted, this bass had enough spunk in him eat an eel half his size, and put up a pretty good fight. A fish that tough deserved his freedom, and as I returned him to the water, he took off with such vigor that he kicked a wave of saltwater into my face.
Stripers are surprisingly tough creatures—they’d have to be to survive somewhere are perilous as the Atlantic Ocean. Have you ever caught a wounded or disfigured bass that was still able to eat despite an obvious malady? Send in your pictures into photos@onthewater.com and we’ll post a gallery of freaky stripers on the blog.
Caught a Fluke once that it looked like a Blue had taken off its tale, but since the was a 19 inch limit and it measured only 18, I had to put it back, so not having a tail was lucky for this Fluke. It also looked life it lived well even without its tail.
2yrs ago I caught a 32″ striper up in Ipswitch MA with a clean bite taken out of it’s back all the way to the spine, 3″ wide, fully healed. that fish fought hard.
Might have been caught in, and released from, a gillnet.
Might have been caught in, and released from, a gillnet.
Definite Gill Net