Pawing through my Bassmaster mag today I found a picture of Steve 'Urban' with a giant dead bass :) along with a nice article about dottie, the 25lb Dixon Lake giant.

It was fun to learn that the bass was 16 years old, and to see the ground down otolith used to age the bass. It got me thinking about the idea that if there is a world record in Nor-Cal somewhere, the fish was born before I even moved to the Bay Area in 2000.

It put in to context just how special a bass has to be to live that long and grow that large. Any bass that grows that big on a public lake will have been caught and released many times before it reaches 20+ pounds, just as this fish was. It's not a maybe in my mind, it's a given.

It made me feel lucky to live in a state where catch and release is the norm for bass. Gives you the hope that some day there might be a chance.

So thanks Steve, for the article and for being brave enough to take a photo with a bass that could not possibly, under any circumstances, have smelled anywhere close to good! :)