It’s a reasonable concern. But anxious anglers can rest assure that the bass reeled in by the pros during the three-day tournament are back where they belong, thanks in part to the efforts of the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. During the daily weigh-ins, fishery biologists and technicians from the agency worked under the stage at the Charlotte Coliseum, where they received the just-weighed fish through a trap door and transferred the catches to one of three large holding tanks, each filled with treated water to minimize stress on the fish.

Shortly after the crowd cleared, they netted the bass, transferred them to a hatchery truck and hauled the day’s catch safely back to Lake Wylie.

“The space under the stage where we worked was only about 6 feet high and 20 feet long, and with each tank measuring four feet high and four feet in diameter— it was a tight fit,” said Rick Bradford, hatchery supervisor, who spent the majority of his time stooped over the tanks, tending to the fish. “Each tank can hold up to 250 pounds of fish. Because our hatchery truck can haul up to 1,000 pounds of fish, we only had to make the 10-mile trip to Lake Wylie once a day to return the bass.”

At Lake Wylie, Commission staff relayed the fish from the hatchery truck to a Bassmasters’ pontoon boat that released the fish at different locations throughout the lake.

From the moment the fish plopped into the tanks at the Coliseum to the moment they wriggled out of nets and into the pontoon boat’s holding tanks, Commission personnel continuously monitored the water to reduce the stress on the fish and help ensure they stayed healthy. They kept the water temperature regulated, treated the water with salt and added pure oxygen from pressurized bottles to the water.

“Because low-oxygen levels in water can have negative impacts on the fish, we added oxygen to alleviate stress,” Bradford said. “We added salt for two reasons: first, added salt in the right concentrations calms the fish without causing harm, and second, to a lesser degree, salt can ward off possible infection from injuries the fish has or had prior to being caught.”

While the tournament catches were released at scattered locations around the 12,149-acre lake, eager anglers needn’t bother rushing out to the spots where they were released in hopes of an easy catch. Those fish are long gone — many of them back to where they were caught over the weekend, said Tony Mullis, regional fishery supervisor with the Wildlife Commission.

Mullis explained that largemouth bass, like other members of the sunfish family, possess strong site fidelity, meaning they usually return to the site where they were born and raised. While many of these fish will return to where they were caught rather quickly, others — especially those released a long distance from where they were caught — will establish new homes in the lake.

These displaced fish typically will seek homes near where they were released or somewhere between their capture and release locations. Still other fish, disoriented after their release and in search of their old homes, may be taken by predators.

“Generally, bass are homebodies,” Mullis said. “But if a spot has good cover, food and other things that make it attractive to bass, another bass — usually one of similar size and age — will soon move in when the original occupant of that spot is removed.”

This means if your honey hole on Lake Wylie brimmed with big bass before the tournament began, it will continue to do so now that the pros have fished and gone.