Yes, I agree with you mooch. I do believe that these may be fish that are 1+ years older than the shaker class that is out there now, decendents of the delayed release hatchery effort. They have escaped from their class as small BM and survived the summer run season and are carryovers from last year.

I also have seen some beautiful winter fish caught up at PNP and Possesion, 25+ #ers. It's possible that some of these may be springs, but I think that in the Manchester area, these are blackmouth that are generally moving north with the bait out of the south sound. I've also fished the Fox Island area for BM in the winter too and it's possible to hook into one of those beauties down there too, so that makes me think that these are BM, not springs.

Rambling now...I think that if we raised the minimum length to 24" like the Canucks, we would see even more of these nice ones.

Nice pic too Mooch. I can see that he is a nice little brutus, lot's of spunk in that fish!