Guist Creek report

[Shimano4Life]

I didn't catch her but I would assume she has passed. The fish spent a long time out of the water, and was probably stressed. Had it been me I would have weighed her, snapped a quick picture, and released her as soon as I could.

She may have swam away, I don't know. I do know that she was released. If she's still living in there she's probably 9lbs+, especially this spring when she's full of eggs. Hopefully she's still alive, waiting for another to catch her.

There's plenty of big fish in Guist for sure. If this one didn't make it, there are more to take her place.

[bushwhackb]

I caught the 8.51 bass & it was not! out of the water long it was also in good shape & in april the water is still pretty cool, me and my partner have caught plenty of nice fish and have not lost one! By the way i thought the fish looked awesom!!!

[Shimano4Life]

I caught the 8.51 bass & it was not! out of the water long it was also in good shape & in april the water is still pretty cool, me and my partner have caught plenty of nice fish and have not lost one! By the way i thought the fish looked awesom!!!

Sorry if you took offense to that bushwhack. I think that missing half the tail hardly constitutes "good shape". By the way, calling a big fish "ugly" is a good thing -- may have sounded out of context to you. You're right too -- the fish was an awesome catch. Hell, I consider any bass 5 or more lbs awesome........

My personal largest catch came from a private neighborhood lake in Georgia where I used to live that was about 5 1/2 ounces shy of 10lbs. She was ugly as hell, about half-dead, and had sores and lesions on her. Caught her at about 10:30 p.m. on a live nightcrawler on a bobber near the chunk rock dam. I was drunk as a bat when the fish hit and was so excited I held the fish in the water until my aunt and uncle could drive down to the dock. Awesome catch, but one hell of an ugly fish.

[modelAbomber]

I caught the 8.51 bass & it was not! out of the water long it was also in good shape & in april the water is still pretty cool, me and my partner have caught plenty of nice fish and have not lost one! By the way i thought the fish looked awesom!!!

I was there and i never will forget the guy that had one five somthing...... he thought he had big fish then bushwhackb weighed his monster in.....my grandfather caught one that weighed 7.15 right across from the marina

[Shimano4Life]

I caught the 8.51 bass & it was not! out of the water long it was also in good shape & in april the water is still pretty cool, me and my partner have caught plenty of nice fish and have not lost one! By the way i thought the fish looked awesom!!!

As far as mishandling the fish, you're not guilty of that and I never accused you. To me stress on that particular fish would have been it being hooked and landed (energy spent), put in a livewell for a little while, then put into a weigh-in bag, then put into another weigh-in bag with no water to be weighed by itself, then weighed with other fish in the same bag with no water, then taken out to have a picture or two snapped (meanwhile the fish is still out of the water), then put back into the weigh-in bag with water, then released.

Fish mortality rates increase greatly for fish over 5lbs. It doesn't seem to affect smaller fish as even though they are handled correctly, close to 7% of bass caught, handled properly, and released are expected to die -- according to scientific research. Most of the information can be googled, and I even think it was in Bassmaster not too long ago. Once again, mortality increases drastically for larger fish, no matter if they were handled correctly.

Hope I cleared that up, Bobby.

[mhall]

I grew up on Guist. We had a camping trailer and camp there on the point for 17 years through my youth. I was good friends with Charlie and Dean McClain and they certainly caught their share of hawgs out of that little lake. Between Charlie and Dean combined they probably have over 20 over 8lb. Charlie use to get them with the old style jigging pole and wads of night crawlers. Of course that was the good ole days and the lake has changed alot with tons of pressure now. Sorry guys I don't want to piss you off but that little lake can't handle all those tournaments, it's just too much on three hundred and change acres. Yea, I know they all get released, but many die.

Anyway I've caught some Toads out of there in my time as well. I had a bass on out in front of our trailer once right in front of the big stump everybody use to hit with their boat motors that was enormous. It straightened out two hooks on the back of a ole Rebel minnow, the long one with the three hooks. My Dad God rest his soul saw the whole thing from the bank as I was in my little Jon and that thing was pulling the boat easily. Back then as a kid I used cable for line and pulled for everything my little skinny ass could muster which is why I lost that pig, wish I could do it over again, lol. In my minds eye I can still see that brute and would bet it was easy 10 maybe a fuzz more. It rolled and couldn't even jump it was so fat.