08-05-2011, 09:00 AM
<br /> I have not been on much on the lake of late so I decided to head down to the river. Raced to the same area Joe and I fished Saturday night and quickly caught a couple of spots on a craw in deeper water. Changed to a larger craw and felt a hard thump. Set the hook and my drag gave way. Figured I had hooked another catfish, but noticed the fish was not death-rolling on me. Got her to the boat and it was a beautiful 19.5 inch smallmouth. Got her in the boat and the hook had barely caught her in the back of the throat, short of the gullet. I quickly laid her in the livewell while I searched for my camera, which I could not find. I then took a single picture on my phone, which apparently did not work. I noticed the fish did not fight one bit. I was starting to get a little worried. I caught the fish in 25 feet of water, so I decided to let her go. I put her back in and watched her lay on the top before trying to swim away. At that point I thought all was well and continued to fish for a few minutes before noticing the fish floating in the river and moving over towards the rocks. I then became concerned and used my telescopic net to net the fish. She was struggling big time and appeared bloated. I called Billy and Jerry, but could not get them to review the fizzing process. I finally looked it up on the web and completed what I thought was a successful fizzing, watching the air bubbles release. I put the fish back into the water and released it. It never even started to swim away. I fished a few more minutes and the fish floated back over to the rocks. Feeling awful, I did the only thing I knew, netting the fish again and putting it into the livewell. I was hoping with ice and all in the livewell she might turn up, but it did not happen.<br /> Too upset to even fish anymore, I headed back towards the ramp and found a family fishing from the bank. I donated my dead catch so that at least it would go to feed someone. I loaded up and went to the house after less than an hour on the water.<br /> It really bothers me when a fish dies, especially one as pretty and as large (4 pounds) as this smallie was.