can't recall if I've told this story on this forum or not...about 15 years ago was fishing a BFL regional on Wheeler lake which is in north Alabama on the Tenn. river...late in second day,my partner and I each caught a small bass with a orange tag that said "reward if returned to Auburn Fishery dept and it gave an address....my no boater didn't want to send his tag in so he gave it to me...
even though we have beat them 13 out of last 16 years,Georgia and Awbarn are big football rivals and we never miss an opportunity to agitiate each other...
and having these two fish tags gave me a opportunity so I called up the fisheries dept at Awbarn,got ahold of nice young fishery professor and told I had caught two fish this past week with tags in them....
He said "yes we have been running a tagging survey on Wheeler lake"..my reply was that I caught them in Cowikee creek on Lake Eufaula (250 miles to the south on different river system)...he quickly told me I was mistaken and that those tags must be some study Georgia was doing...my reply was "No,I'm looking at them and they are that disgusting shade of awbarn orange and clearly labeled return to Auburn fishery dept and gave the address....long silence then he said "somebody must be transporting our fish"....I asked did he think it was possible for those fish to swim down the Tenn river to the Ohio,down to the Miss then down to the coast,across the intracoastal and up the Chattahoochee river.....his quick reply "not in two weeks they couldn't"....
I couldn't keep from laughing and confessing that I really had caught them In lake Wheeler but I did ask him on how much the reward was for sending them in...his reply was $5.00 per tag and one lucky person would win $50.00 in a random draw....
told him looks like they could pay more than that because awbarn hadn't been spending much money on buying good football players last few years....he didn't think that was near as funny as I did...

LOLstill funny though

Didn’t read it the first time if you had so I’m glad you did again!

Good laugh

Yep!

I know of 2 studies where tags were involved and in one a fish was caught 22 miles back to where it was caught. In the other the fish were tagged in the upper Chesapeake and caught in the Potomac near where they were caught.
Probably 50 miles or more.

Not funny but interesting.