I have always been a guy who is extremely sensitive toward any sorts of animals. Whether it’s a reptile, amphibian, mammal, you name it. Largemouth Bass to me are very special. They have been building me into a man as I am 17 years old right now finding myself. Bass have helped me find myself. This is why I am so discouraged.
Today I fished a small local neighborhood lake that I love very much. Has some toads of bass here in the Midwest. I was wacky rigging a YUM Dinger and was catching a few quality fish here and their enjoying my time along the bank catching fish as usual. So after catching some I had ended up hooking another bass and was reeling it in and it was by far the biggest of the few I had caught today. It was not big at all but it was probably 1 pound & about 5 to 10 ounces I’d say. When I reeled it up I noticed I had hooked the throat of this beautiful fish. I tried getting the hook out with pliers but didn’t pull hard at all because then I would of made the situation worse for the poor fish by tearing its throat out. I made the sad choice to cut the line and hope for that somehow he would swim away even though I very much so knew that this fish was most likely in serious trouble of death. Once I let him go I instantly felt so sorry for it. It was fighting so hard to just keep on living. With all of its energy it had tried so hard. I actually reached in and got it back again with my hand to maybe force myself to put it out of its misery. But I just couldn’t do stab it in the brain to make it brain dead. I couldn’t get myself to kill this bass for some reason. I was so discouraged and as embarrassing as this is to admit extremely sad about this today. I had made a promise a little while back to ALWAYS be vegan towards strictly Bass. I love bluegill and all other freshwater fish but I never will eat a bass. So if your wondering why I didn’t want to just eat it I don’t fillet bass unlike I do with all the other freshwater fish. I am very discouraged and I am well aware this bass went to good use for whatever has eaten it, it still makes me ache. Catching Bass isn’t just a sport to me, they are also apart of me. Did I do the wrong thing not killing it even though I just couldn’t seem to stab it? Should I be upset and discouraged?
Thanks for reading my post and look forward to hearing replies!
This is Passion 4 Bassin (P4B) and goodbye.
EDIT: After all these replies about how good bass are... I feel like I might as well try cook a nice largemouth Bass sometime?? Thanks everyone for all this feedback. I hope to read more.