You're never too old to catch someone in a flying armbar, Mark!

I also challenge the following TFFers to a cagefight for the following reasons:

Mark Perry for posting after midnight

Marc Mitchell for having weak knee ligaments

RedRanger for having stupid sexy biceps

Cameron@LFM for being taller than the Sasquatch in the beef jerky commercials, but in Spanish your name means shrimp (???)

Zack Starling because one time a starling pooped on my truck

Cajunkidd for making your English teacher look like a f@#$ing failure

Evan O'Brian for being so damn knowledgeable in escrow accounts

Ride or Fish because that shouldn't even be an option

Fouzman for anything that has to do with Camelot Bell

Ken A for being the biggest Asian on earth

Jersey Dan for being a Stanky Yankee

Deputy Angler for not being the sheriff

Spiderman15 for making me be his net boy since I was 17

Ronnie Kelly for his witchcraft in predicting 15 pounders at fork

Jay Kendrick for being a Lumberjack (and proud)

Lance Vick because he can't field a grounder as good as Lance Nix

Jason Hoffman because he dropshots a lot and that's kinda my deal

Stephen Fatheree for posing the awesome fishing videos with bikini girls, but not posting their phone numbers

And finally JC Outdoors because I saw you at my moms house one time and you were indoors so that's very misleading.

I apologize if I've left out any TFF legends, but its 1:00 in the morning and I'm tired of thinking about it. Just pm me and I'll see you in the cage.

Unfortunately this will get deleted when Fouz gets out of bed.

I like that fastlane guy.

IBTL anybody?

Mama said to cut a fish in half at the tail and count the rings to tell its age.

TP&W checks the genitics for Florida strain. I remember some that were returned unused because they were not Florida. Falcon

ahahaha... I love this forum.


From my experience with aging largemouth bass scales, things get real confusing past age 6. I've never aged a Texas LMB, but I've analyzed probably 10k of them in Indiana. Scales have growth rings, like a tree. Only instead of 1 per year, they can have 20. The "broken" ring is indicates the 1 year mark. Typically, rapid increases in growth cause this broken ring to occur. However, "false annulus" rings can also occur. For example, spawning stress can cause these broken lines to occur too. Combine false annuli with actual annuli and the exact age becomes difficult to establish. We have multiple people age the same scales in an unbiased manner to acquire more accurate measurements. From what I hear, Texas fish are even harder to age since there isn't really a pause in the growth season (which causes the rings to bunch closer together on the scales). Indiana has northern strain fish, so growth rates are much different with that in consideration too, but it takes most of Indiana's fish 3-4 years to reach 14" (still subject to environmental conditions). Once they reach that length, growth rates increase substantially with the ability to consume larger forage, such as gizzard shad. Fish continue to grow their entire life with appropriate conditions; however, growth rates will slow down considerably. The oldest bass I've aged was probably around 12 years old, and that was an 8lber in Indiana. The most precise way to actually age a fish is by removing the otolith, which is kind of like the "inner ear" bones of the fish. These have more distinctive growth rings. The catch is, you have to hack the head in half to get them... so it isn't really a desirable method if the intent is to catch-and-release. Hard spines are being considered more and are successful for aging walleye in the North. I'm not sure what all TPWD uses, but scales are a harmless and easy way to get a decent ballpark estimate. I assume that all share-a-lunker juvenile fish have chip tags, which provides an ID number for the fish.

That is Hilarious dude!!! I had to wipe down my iPad because I spit coffee all over it!!

Greatness!

Santa aint got nothing on this list!

Almost sounds like the 'people to kill' list from billy madison.

Sharelunker offspring look a little different, at least in their youth. Their bodies grow a bit faster than their heads, so you get a slightly misproportioned fish with a small head and bigger body. A 2 year old bass that you'd expect to weigh 2 lbs weighs three, but has the 2 lb head. Don't know if that evens out as they grow, because I haven't caught a huge sharelunker offspring.

@ DougR, I tried that out here & all I could find was their green card..... :>)

KVDwho that puts it all into perspective.

That's funny stuff right there.

Who is the midget in the pic?

I have never known TPWD to use anything but the oxcipital (sp) bone to age fish, and I have been in on several of both Bass and Crappie studies in the last few years. And the fish don't survive that one. Only SL fish that have been entered into the program receive a RF chip. It is impossible to to tell a SL fry or yearling from another pure Florida.

Until very recently a SL could not be told from the herd. Now they have recorded the DNA of the parent fish, and if a SL decendent fish in the distant future gets caught, they will know where it originated.. But it is a numbers game..

Don't look for a study to find growth rates of SL fish from public waters any time soon.. Catching one is a million to one shot.. (thirteen pounder) And TPWD does not have the time or $$ for this needle in a haystack search..

Thanks for the explanation James...i was starting to think my question got overlooked! Next time somebody just slap me when the adults are talking! Haha!

least im stupid legend at something now whooo hooooo