I haven't killed a LMB since around 1984 so considering the number of bass I released, I wouldn't hesitate to keep the new state record if I wanted to.

My reason being - the fish would be past it's prime and already anyway and has passed on those same genetics many many times.

I do like the Findbass idea and would do the same. I carry a rope stringer even when I'm fishing out of my tin can. Called the wife one morning at 8am (I gave her a couple extra hours sleep) and told her to drive over and meet me to take a picture of what turned out to be a 24-1/2" 7.25 that was released after about 2 hours of towing it around. She had to drag my two young kids with her to boot. She was not nearly as excited about the idea as I was though.

Note - if you are going to try this, you poke the stringer wire/nail up from under the bottom lip, just behind the jaw bone where your thumb is when you lip one. I DON'T mean looping it through the gill opening and out the mouth as you'd probably kill the fish that way. Keep it close to the lip, or it will just tare till it get to the lip anyway, making the hole bigger than it needs to be. Loop it through the ring, tie it off to the boat with enough slack and let the fish swim next to the boat. You can safely tow that fish around with the trolling motor for hours assuming you don't forget it and fire up the big motor. It works fine, once I even caught one of my own fish again 2 months later, with the same small hole in the same place I put it.