50 Pounders !!! Striper Report - Johnny Bucktails

[hammer4reel]

Congrats on what looked to be a super fun day of fishing for you and your friends.
some very nice bass caught.

BUT lets also keep it real, looking at the pics which can be deceiving I didn't think any of the pics showed a LEGIT 50, as the MASS required and the head size of the bass just don't show.'after watching the video I would be pretty safe to bet they aren't close to 5o's being let go.
and here's why.

Unless Matt is 7 foot tall I would expect his Belly button ( his measuring spot ) would not be over 40-42 inches from the boat deck,Im 6'3 and mine is 42" . that is NOW WHERE close to what it takes even an unspawned bass to hit the 50 mark.

The pics you show appear to be hudson fish which don't the wide girth of the Chessy bass.
For those fish Normally to hit the 50 mark they are 50" Plus
Chessy fish which are girthier take a little less at around 47"

50 pound fish also aren't held out at arms length as they just want to roll over due to their weight displacement. while many guys can hold a forty that way, I haven't seen 1 yet do that with a 50 plus

they just get very hard to hold. Thats why most pics of big fish don't look as big as they were in person because the pics are usually cradling the fish .


all bass over 30 pounds have giant heads on them and would allow a fish to easily go down to the gullet without touching the sides.

would say you need to get your boga calibrated.


.

what else I would say is this.

While I was very glad to see you released a bunch of nice bass, watching the video in the manner they were handled was tough to watch .
throwing them around with a bogs on their lip like that is really easy to destroy their jaws.
and only one of those fish really took off as they should, bopping them on the head making them dive too soon just makes the go down , many times to just float up later on .


take the time to swim them or use the SW wash down until they really bite down and also want to swim on their own .
when they go down laying on their side, they are not revived enough to have as good a chance as possible to survive.

They should be swimming and moving their tails on their own.

Hope to see you releasing more big ones again !!