Hard to Explain...

Lots of strange things happen when we go Bass fishing here's one that happened to me this week...

I turn up at a very wide strand well after dark, stand back and pick my spot. I decide on how to cover the area and proceed to my starting point. I wade into the small surf, cast out at about 45 degrees to my left and start to retrieve my Shore Line Shiner  very very slowly (Where would we be without them).....halfway back to me I get an almighty hit and the line is ripped off the reel, luckily I've set the clutch about right, just as the fish slows everything goes slack, oh well! I recast in the same direction, halfway in and exactly the same thing happens! Wow I'm in for a mega nights fishing I think to myself!! This time the fish is landed, a nice 6lb fish which I notice when unhooking has fresh injuries from hooks under its chin but the fish is lip hooked - definitely the same fish hooked twice in my opinion. The fish is released and I continue to fish the whole of the strand for the next 2 hrs trying everything I have without the merest hint of a fish. This episode raises so many questions for me.

If this was indeed the same fish did the fish "understand" it was hooked on the first occasion?

If so why would a hooked fish attack the same lure a second time? (Once bitten...... not this bass) !!

How could there only be one, very aggressively feeding, fish in that huge area of water?

What are the chances of my putting a lure on its nose with first and second cast in total darkness?

Did my released fish panic others in it's group?
How many times do we take a fish in our first five casts, release it and get nothing more...

I could think of a few more questions and I'm sure you could to...