As I mentioned in another thread to Goharley a few days back, we got a chance to catch a 40" x 20" buck a couple of times over last week.

While C&R certainly helps put a few more fish on the beds ... here's another example of it's importance to sports anglers by allowing two anglers in three days to catch the same trophy-class fish

The first day, he was caught in some swirly water right on the edge of a steep drop off in about 10 feet of water under extemely low water. He marched upstream on us for a bit trying to leave the hole on the upstream end before we finally got him turned to slug it out in the deep water of the hole.

The next day, I was forced to head elsewhere due to logistical probs but we returned the follwing day and started our day in the very hole we got him in two days previous.

It took just one well-placed cast right on the drop to make the bobber go under in the exact same spot. A short run downstream and the fish made a great endo showing himself and I hinted then that I thought it might be the very same fish.

He was actually quite a bit more of a tussle the second time around and this time he promptly left the bottom end of the hole doing about Mach 9 ... we gave chase and finally caught up to him a few hundred yards down. As he finally got him up to the boat, I could see the yucky spot on his tail was exactly the same as what we'd seen two days earlier to confirm he was the same fish!

A neat success story of C&R to allow two anglers to enjoy the same hefty fish a couple of times over ... we nicknamed him "sucker"

Day one:



Day three: