This was a big female full of eggs and she sure put up a fight! Caught her on a gold/black sinking Rapala.
Don't believe my buddies telling the story that I caught her because she was blind in one eye and I snagged her when she wasn't looking! We took a couple of quick pictures and released her back into the King's River. She swam briskly away and I'm sure she's spawned by now to create lots of little brownies to keep that river fun and exciting. We always release all the smallmouth bass because they are very slow growing and can be caught untold numbers of times to keep giving up lots of fun for lucky anglers. More for everyone else and the kids get so excited when they're able to catch a really high quality fish like this. Karen has already caught 2 smallmouths over 3 lbs. this spring! Some of the locals kill any big fish they catch and eat them, but we tend to leave these great sport fish in the water and eat the catfish we catch!