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Wish I'd seen this before yesterday, I only started to target tog the last couple of years, I honestly had no clue that the 24" fish I caught yesterday would be 20+ years old. Good to know moving forward, because I'm a firm believer in letting large breeder stripers go, no reason not to translate that policy to this species.
My big tog will feed a large yearly xmas gathering, but in hindsight a few good pictures would be more than I needed. When I was young and thought trophies on the wall were cool, I was always after that smallmouth bass to fill a void on my wall of shame and 6 lbs was my minimum. I can still remember the day a 6.5lber turned me into an acrobat chasing him from one side of a 16 foot aluminum V-hull to the other, each time I someone managed get to one side, I'd turn my head in disbelieve watching her clear the air and tailwalk on the other. When I finally managed to slip a net under her, I quickly weighed her and slipped her back into the water with a Bill Dance kiss on the lips and a hearty thank you. My brother-in-law looked at me like I'd lost my mind exclaiming "that was the trophy you've been looking for are you crazy". I looked at him with a big ass smile and said she earned that release.
Gladly I never filled that spot on the wall, sold all my mounts a few years later, but the mental images of each battle won last forever, even with the pictures fade away.
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