large mouth bass. stupid?

I have just come back from Florida, where I got a days bass fishing with a pro guide.

We were the first boat on the lake to get into the fish and were suddenly surrounded by every boat for miles, with what looked like about half a million accumulated horsepower, all shouting to each other. Every fish should have gone into hiding but they kept on coming into the boat. Dumb or what?

I can`t really call it a sporting excercise as tackle was 30lb. line class rods and crank em in as fast as possible.

After spending nearly 20 years on and off fishing for bass - not in the USA by the way, I can say that a very dim view would be taken by anglers in boats behaving like that.

As regards the strength of the tackle, well in actual fact it's quite necessary, especially if you practice catch and release. To catch bass you often have to cast your lure directly into snags, sunken trees, lillies and other such structure. Hauling them out has become a norm. It doesn't harm them at all as both large and smalmouth bass have incredibly tough mouths.

What is unsporting is playing a fish too long orbreaking off ona fish and leaving hooks or a lure in it's mouth!