"Gene" opined:
We caught this bass ~10PM , July the 14th , 2006 on
Stillhouse Lake, near Killeen, TX - then chunked him
back into the water.

When I first read your description, sez I, "It aint a him, it's a her."

Then I looked at your pic. Then ran some numbers. Six - seven pounds could
go either way but still probably a female. Then I looked at your pic again.
Your post-spawn bass is not too portly, so it could be male. It's hard to
be certain if it's a he or a she, IMHO. The Texas ShareLunker fingerlings
planted in your lake interbreeding with Northern strain LM Bass make the
calculation hard to say for sure. If she was 8 pounds plus then she would
probably be female since pure Florida strain males rarely get over 7 pounds.
My guess is it is a female.

The aluminum net rim measures 22" center to center - so
the bass must be ~ 23" long. It was really fat (thick).
Yep female lunker bass get that way. Do a Google or Yahoo search and you'll
see LM bass don't get much longer in inches but double and more in weight.


We did not want to take the time to find the scales and measuring
tape, as we really wanted it to survive - which it did:-)
At ten PM she had a good chance of surviving - congratulations. But IMHO
her chances of survival depend more on how exhausted she was, if her gills
were damaged, whether there was any infection where she was hooked and so on
in addition to how fast she was chuinked back into the water.

Please post your best guesstimate here - possibly we can come up
with a length and weight range. Just curious:-)

See bass photo he
http://www.io.com/~genes/bass.jpg

Gene

It is definitely a Big bass (5-6 pounds and up). Thanks for sharing with us
and releasing her to be caught again.