Deformed or broken?

[FinsnFur]

Whatya think?


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[pitw]

I think she got chewed on when she was a little mite.

[nastygunz]

Dee-formed!

[Todd Rahm]

Broken, at an early age. Most likely a lure 😁 but healed well it appears.

[Hawks Feather]

It has been caught too many times by Jim Champion.   

[FinsnFur]

The way everything was smoothed over it looked very much to me like it was broke at an early age and the fish learned to make it work.  I felt kinda bad for it.
I was using one of my homemade jigs when I caught this. Cast it in...allow it to slowly sink and then let the custom tail flutter off the bottom for a few seconds with some light twitches of the rod tip, so it looks like a crawfish or a wounded bait fish.
I literally felt this fish grab the jig and fumble to get it in it's mouth three times before I felt confident enough to set the hook. Anyone who fishes for Bass and Pike relentlessly knows that you can feel everything thats going on down there. You feel every rock, branch, weed, and bottom bump.
When this thing fumbled to get the jig in it's mouth, I felt the first lift and release and wondered what the hell just happened.  Before I could make sense of any of it, the fish did it again. I'm tensing up ready to set the hook, my body is half turned and in full cocked position but my brain says not yet not yet. It was so weird. As you know..a premature hook set would spook with fish and blow the whole thing. In less time then it took you to read that, the third attempt was made and this time she got it in her half developed mouth, made a lil tug to let me know, and I replied with a full swing.
Once I seen the fish it all started to make sense what was going on down there.