So there I was. In 15’ of water, dragging a fb jig around one cold sunny day January day in Oklahoma, when I felt a thump, I set the hook and within about a minute, I had her in my net. It was about 3:30. I put her in the livewell to prepare for a quick solo photo shoot with her. I went to get her out of the livewell and realized she was rolled over on her belly. No blood, I hooked her cleanly in the top of the mouth. I took a quick photo and tried holding her upright, she would kick off and then come back up after a few seconds. I was unprepared, I didn’t have a needle to fizz and I had never heard of fin clips at the time.

I knew there was a farm supply store about 30 minutes away, so I went for it. I knew it was a lot of stress to a fish having her be on her side in my livewell for that long, but I went for it. It was getting dark and I needed to do something. I learned how to do it on the way to the store. I got the needle, crossed my fingers, and stuck her in her side. I let bubbles out for about 5 seconds, instantly she was bouncing off the walls of my champs livewell.

We went back to the lake, and she charged off.

That fish weighed 9 pounds and had a missing right eye and a few unique markings but otherwise a very healthy and beautiful fish.

Fast forward, almost one year, same like , I’m casting my 6XD into a brush pile, and my rod loads up with a nice fish, a few moments later I’ve got the same fish in the net! Same exact fish. About 300 yards from where I caught her the first time. She weighed about the same. I didn’t need to fizz the second time, she charged off into the depths.

I know fizzing works, I just really like to be prepared for baro trauma now, it was the worst feeling rushing that fish to the feed store for a needle that night. I recommended getting educated on it, even if you’ve never had a problem with it before, it was the worst feeling being unprepared for that.

I’ve been digging around for photos of that fish, but haven’t found them, if I do, I’ll post them.

Hope you enjoyed my story.

Thanks for posting those, I’m starting to dig deeper into the descender idea. Is there a chance when you do this that they go down, and stay down, but are rolling over and dying down there from all the pressure changes ?

Has anyone heard from a fisheries guy that is dialed into bass?

You will have a hard time finding a biologist that recommends fizzing through the throat. There is less room for error and if you go a little too high and hit that artery, its 100% gonna die.

When fizzing from the side, there is very little risk to causing severe damage.

Throw the bass up in the air a decent ways and let it hit the water. When it hits the water, it knocks the air out and they have a better time going down. I use this with crappie I have caught 45 ft deep and it works most of the time.