ill toss a twist in to the debate. on thread page 38 richz mentions paul caruso and the 11 4 he caught in 78 on moodus. paul(who passed away 2 years ago) was a good friend of mine who helped get me interested in collecting old fishing tackle. he owned and operated a tackle shop for over 30 years. most of them in the clinton/ westbrook area. his 11 lb 4 oz bass hung on the wall in his store. sadly the last time i visited paul before his death the fish had fallen and the tail had broken off. according to paul the state record was a florida strain. that in 1960 the guy who caught it had a neighbor who was a fisheries employee who wouldnt squeal on him because he was his neighbor. the neighbor, who paul knew either at the time of the record or at a later time claimed the fish was frozen, driven to ct and recorded. i never debated the story with paul so i never asked him his sources name. of course paul wasnt biased as he claimed to any one who would listen that his fish was the unofficial state record. dusty, did the state retain scale samples from fish that far back? would they have collected scales from a record fish back then? too bad we couldnt "csi" the evidence and test the validity of pauls story.