years ago was fishing a Hydrasport team tourney on Lake lanier….was hopping a jig down a fairly steep bank up the river when I got a bite..set the hook and a 2 1/2 lb fish came to the top and jumped and when I got the fish closer to the boat all of a sudden I could feel the fish on but it felt like the fish was hung up on something and I couldn't pull the fish any closer to the boat....
kicked the trolling on high and got right over the fish and was able to pull it to the top and my partner got the net under it.....fish had a rusty spoon in it's mouth and line was hung up on something on the bottom probably 25 ft deep...thinking there might a rod and reel down there,I unhooked the fish and pulled on the line until it broke.....
guess that fish was like a dog on a chain,it would bite anything it could reach while tethered to that line...hooks on spoon were about to rust through so apparently fish had been hung up like that for awhile....
was this a legally caught fish?

Here we go...

Illegal. Punishable by death.

You guys need to go run your boats around a while. Keep away from others and release some steam.

Yea. What difference would it make that it has a hook in it mouth? Lots of bass are caught where u can see the hook down it’s throat where somebody has caught it before and cut the line and released it trying not to harm it. I personally caught one on Palestine one time and kept hearing this knocking sound on the side of my boat as I was going down to lip it. It had a minnow hook in it attached to a swivel with a bell weight on it. It had eaten someone’s minnow, and broke their line. Maybe just the fact that the line coming out of your fishes mouth was hung up on something in lake made you wonder? Legal catch though.

I weighed it in and didn't give it a second thought....however after seeing all the debate over the MLF guy breaking a fish off, finding his line an hour later then handlining the fish in,it appears there is a lot of different opinions on what constitutes a legally caught fish...
with many of us quarantined in front of a computer,figured it would help pass the time by giving us some issues to debate(argue) about....

I would think it's a legal catch since you caught it on your hook, but I would call the tournament director and let him make the decision to keep it or not. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I just kept it and didn't say anything about it to the TD

I thought that was a college team.

my mistake-it was a college team...must have been thinking of all the controversy over the fish Sprague hooked in its side....