I promised a few weeks ago in response to the 'To many people killing trophy bass' post to write an article about trophy bass care and handling. Here it is:

http://www.calfishing.com/freshwater/care_and_handling.html

I need to add photos and diagrams but it will all come in time. I just finally today got my digital camera back in action so hopefully it won't be long :)

Great writing and info Rob!

I too carry a spare digital camera and make sure the battery on my Canon Powershot G6 is charged(I keep a second battery on the charger all the time.). It's battery is expensive(about $50) but it lasts and lasts. I have a sewing tape and an aircraft, coated cable stringer(no live well in my little Basshunter boat) with large, stainless steel clips for Bass-resting between weighing and photographing.

It's a given I guess but you didn't mention wetting your hands before handling a Bass.

Do you mind if I post your article on other forums?


Dan

I never mind if people link to here :)

Great article Rob! I hope your camera troubles dont make you miss any good big fish photo ops!

Excellent article, Rob!

The idea is to release the Bass as quickly as possible. But, in relation to aeration where you must "keep" or "rest" a Bass in a livewell or cooler for short periods, an exciting idea may be to use the Aqua Innovations Pure Oxygen Aerator operating on 12V DC (your deep cycle battery).

The Aqua Innovations "Magnum" Aerator http://aquainnovationsinc.com/magnum.html will provide pure oxygen (with an oxygen saturation rate of greater than 80% dissolved oxygen in 7 minutes) to 35 - 120 litres of water. Buy online from: www.cabelas.com or www.basspro.com

Pre-oxygenate your livewell or cooler and switch on again after you get the big one (or ask your buddy to switch on when you are playing the monster ...).

Click here http://www.keepfishalive.com/fieldstaff-pages/johnson/keeping_fish_alive.html
to read an interesting article about the importance of oxygen levels (in relation to other factors such as water temperature and salt balance) in keeping fish alive or helping them to recover. Oxygen level is most definitely the single most critical factor and an aid to recovery. Oxygen is more important than livewell additives ...

Hope this info may "save" a couple more giants to contribute to the Bass gene pool!

Thanks Rob, your site helps to keep me "sane" between fishing trips!

All the best,
Jacques
www.BigBass.co.za

Jacques,

The oxygen systems are pretty cool. If I had a bass boat, I'd look in to getting one. I have too much crap on my jon boat already so it's not really in the cards for me now.

Taylor,

I have a backup digital camera, not that I needed it since I haven't caught a fish worth taking a picture of in ages lol. I had the most unbelievable string of bad luck with digital cameras last year and I'm hoping now I've finally got it fixed.

The breif rundown goes like this...

bought a Nikon Coolpix 8700 January last year
It broke a few weeks later
Got it replaced
The replacement broke a month later

bought a Canon Power Shot Pro1 instead
liked the camera but it broke too 8 months later
Got it replaced
The replacement was stolen off my porch around Christmas x(
Fought with UPS and Costco for 2 months
Finally got my money back

Went to buy the Power Shot Pro1 again but Costco no longer carried it
Wound up upgrading to the Canon Digital Rebel XT
I sure hope this one doesn't break!

Nice article Rob. However, I have to disagree with you on one point.

My personal opinion is that it is never a good idea to poke a hole anywhere in any bass, no matter how small the hole (except when fizzing, a needle is small enough). The only thing that does is creates a "portal" for potential infection. If a scale has a hook that is too small to allow weighing where you insert the hook between gill plate and last gill arch, then you need to either buy another scale with a bigger hook, or better yet, replace the stock hook with a much larger one.

How do we know that those holes heal quickly? I have caught many bass that had holes in their lower jaws from either scales or cull clips. Often you can tell those holes have gotten bigger and you can see signs of infection (Clear Lake is horrible with this, I have caught bass that were absolutely torn up from being "poked"). I cringe when I fish tournaments, just watching how other fishermen constantly poke cull clips into fish is something I just dont like. They do sell non-intrusive clips, I wish more people would use them.

On a lighter note, I need to figure out a way to take photographs when Im by myself. My biggest fear is catching a fish of a lifetime and not being able to document it. Sure, I know what I need to do, but I just havent done it yet (i.e., rig a pole in back of boat, and practice with height to be able to get a good, self taken photo). Maybe you could find a link to that article that Fish Chris wrote years ago for In-Fisherman that addressed this issue.

I can definitely agree on the poking the hole thing and I never do it any more. When I used to do it with my Stren scale I had it sharpened to a point that was as sharp as my hooks so I could just pop it through really easily. I think people get in to trouble when they use an unsharpened hook and have to punch it through. That's totally not good.

The thing I see a lot in tournaments that really kills me is guys putting cull bouys in the soft skin behind the mandible and then weighing the fish by the cull boys, thus ripping a 2 or 3" long hole behind the fish's upper jaw. When you catch those fish with their upper jaw missing, you can bet that's what happened :(

I have all my cull bouys sharpened just like I used to do with my scale and I put them through slightly thicker skin. I also never use the cull bouy to lift the fish. When they're sharp like that, it's not much different than a hook hole in the lip, but I doubt many people do it that way unfortunately. If I fished more tournaments where I actually culled fish, I'd look into some of the non-invasive type cull bouys.

Chris' self taken photo article is at:
http://www.trophybassonly.com/id53.htm

I think it's just not linked into his index of articles.

Another great article to check out on C&R of big bass is Chris' article here:

http://www.trophybassonly.com/id50.htm

Wow Rob all I have is a crappy Kodak 2mp that has screwed me on a few big fish pics so far but is decent for web pics. Anyhow I am gonna get a good one in the near future.

After all the problem I had with those new cameras, it sure made me think about my old Nikon Coolpix 800 2.1mp camera that lasted more than 5 years and took thousands of pictures with no problems.

I think with that Nikon 8700, it was just super sensitive to water. There were some trips where I took it out to take pictures in the rain and a few drops of water got on it, and it seemed like usually a week or two after that the camera would go haywire. It wasn't a 1-to-1 relationship between getting it wet and having it break but the timing was suspect. The thing that was BS was that it was like 5 rain drops and poof it was fried. That camera didn't take that great of shots anyway, the Canon was much better so maybe it was a blessing in disguise... just a long, annoying, and hard to resolve blessing lol.

When I went digital I specifically looked for an all weather outdoor camera for obvious reasons. At the time, I could only find one (in the mid-priced range anyway) and that was the Olympus Stylus 410. Its got rubber gaskets on all closures which makes it rain resistant. Its worked fine so far.

One problem I have with digital is I fish at night alot. At night you cant see the person on the LCD, and its a pain to get it perfect while looking through the viewfinder. Also, and this is a major problem for me with digital, is that at night it is extremely difficult to get a "shake free" image. Ive gotten lucky, on two nice fish we took like 20 images; all were blurry except two!! Whew. Also, you cant tell when you look at the images on the camera is they are blurry or not. Ive looked at the images right after taken and they look fine; get them home and into photoshop and they stink!!

Yea I totally wish that more of the cameras on the market had the rubber gasket seals in the joints. Some of the higher end DSLR's that I looked at had them but they were too big and too expensive.

I haven't had problems with shaking at night, that is a new one to me. Not sure how to resolve... As far as checking the images for focus, some of the mid-range stuff now had really good preview options, like you can zoom way in on the image to see if it's in focus right on the LCD. This one I just bought has 10x magnification on the LCD and the Pro1 had something similar but slightly less magnified.

I can't remember exactly what the deal was, but some of the cameras I looked at in the past had features where the lcd viewfinder was illuminated in such a way that you could see the subject at night, similar to the way the Sony camcorders have a night mode that shoots in green and black. That would be a cool feature to have... One thing I learned about digital SLR's is that the viewfinder screens don't show you the subject when you are aiming to take the picture, you have to look through the small viewfinder. This was a bit of a surprise to say the least. It has something to do with the aperature not being open until the instant the picture is taken. Clearly I've been reading too many digital camera review sites :) ...

I just purchassed a fairly cheep 4.o MP Hp camera that is advertised to be weather resistant to keep on my boat. It is not fancy but it had all the features I was looking for for a fishing camera (small, timer, recharagable batteries that can also use standard batteries, and weather resistant)

http://hpshopping.speedera.net/www.shopping.hp.com/shopping/images/products/l1891a_400.jpg

That's what is so cool now-a-days. You can get a really decent camera that takes great pictures for a very reasonable price :)

How much was it? And where?
Tight lines,
Wade

If you guys want to get lost in the world of digital photography, the place to go is www.dpreview.com. They have probably the most epic review site I've ever seen. Anything you want to know is probably in the forums and they have tons of general info about digital photography. Most helpful.

If you want to comparison shop on prices, check out www.bhphotovideo.com. They have a great selection and very good pricing. I just bought a nifty waterproof case from them (Pelican makes all sizes for decent prices like $15-$40 depending on the size if you're interested, just search for Pelican on the site).

urban: I've been taking pics by myself for several years now. I found out the hard way(had a Fuji digital go overboard after the tripod's clamp popped loose) not to use a cheap tripod. I got http://www.wolfcamera.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10101&catalogId=10001&langId=-1&productId=13069599&bct=t1004%3Bc1014%3Bc5849816 that one a year or two ago and it fits right on my deck behind me in my little, 10' X 4' boat http://www.f150online.com/galleries/pictureview.cfm?pnum=112849&anum=3382 It's under the paddle with the camera attached. All I have to do is reach around and raise it up, spread the legs(that one has sharp tips to anchor it to the 'carpet'), turn the camera on and set the timer. That Canon comes with a remote, wireless control that allows for zooming and shutter control. That camera also has a 2 X 3" screen that can face forward so you can see exactly what you're taking a pic of without looking thru the viewfinder. http://web.canon.jp/Imaging/psg6/index-e.html

I too used the Review site that Rob linked to to find the camera I wanted.


Dan