Last night (8/31), I received an email from Roger Schulz lamenting the fact that due to his treatment he was not out in Idaho catching smallmouth bass. He requested that I post some photos of fish so he could relive some of his trips the past 8 or 9 years. I told him I was going fishing today and that I'd try to catch a fish worth a photo. Well, here it is:

This fish was 18" long and very stout. It put up a great fight. It was hooked on a Yum 4" Wooly Curltail used like a wakebait in about 18" of water on a rocky bar. The reel was an old Shimano Bantam 100, but the other tackle was modern.
I was very interested to note that it had been tagged some time ago. The spaghetti tag was mossed over and unreadable, so I cut it off and brought it home. Cleaned up it is readable. I will post the tag number to the Idaho Fish & Game website and see what I can learn. I average over 1500 smallmouth a year from the Snake and have never seen or heard of a tagged fish before. I am quite interested in learning where and when it was tagged. I will post the answer on this thread when I learn that information.

Thanks Phil

That is a nice looking fish. It will be very interesting to find out when it was tagged and the location of the tagging. You don't have any history when the State did any sampling on that section of the Snake? Probably came from the reservoir upstream. That does show that their are fish in river that you have never caught over the many years. The biomass of the 19 miles of the river must be huge.

The picture made me feel good. I am counting the days until May and next August. Maybe I should spend the summer. Fudge would probably get tired of me.

Roger

Nice fish, Phil! We recapture a lot of tagged fish here too and many have algae growing on them that obscure the info. You can usually scrape that stuff off pretty easy with your fingernail or the back of a knife so as not to damage the printing. That way you can measure and record location to report and release it again so it continues to add data as people recapture it down the road. Roger, they say that about the biomass of the fish that we tag and recapture here too.

Nice fish Phil. Roger, praying that you will be able to return to the great fishing and the good times with your friend. Always love to see the fantastic pictures.