"John Kerr" sez:

First off, there were no livewells to put the fish in....Dixon only
rents small boats, no others allowed. Second, these guys were not
"dummies", they fish that lake every day. They knew the fish was there,
and where it was at. They bought a camping permit that allowed them
first boat rental of the day, and were on the fish at first light. Mac
has caught a 19 lber there, and Jed holds the 4th largest bass ever
recorded....the same fish 3 years ago! They are all featured in the book
"Sowbelly", and they knew exatly what they were doing! They had no
choice...there were wittnesses that saw the foul hook!

So more of the story is coming out. So John help me out. Is this what
really happened?

The three legally bought a camping permit so they could get a boat first and
beat everybody lined up trying to get on the lake and run their newly rented
boat over to where they knew this big bass was spawning so they could be
first to foul hook her. So they wanted to be first where she was so no one
could see them fishing? These guys had planned this in advance. Is that
right? Is it in Monte Burke's book what they were going to do? So they had
planned in advance to foul hook her or to hopefully snag her in the mouth so
they could get the world record? And once he foul hooked her, all three
could not lie and say he caught her legally because the lake was so small
there were other witnesses that saw him foul hook her? The other witnesses
not in the boat could not see the scale show 25 pounds either I bet. So is
that why he threw her back in the lake without measuring her or weighing her
on a certified scales so he or one of his buddies could foul hook her
another day? Did these guys really plan on doing this in advance? Were
these guys really that smart or did they just get caught foul-hooking
spawning bass and tried to cover it up?

I'm confused. I don't know what really happened, John. I'm sure glad I'm
not on the IGFA committee that has to evaluate their application.
John