Lots of questions about whether he caught it in federal waters or not, and whether it was a net/commercial fish. Here is one of the most carefully thought out responses to that, posted on the internet. I thought it made a lot of sense to me:
"If the guy fishes from a tin boat, he caught the fish inshore. He's not running out to federal waters south of the Block to poach in the EEZ in a #^&#^&#^&#^&ing tin boat. The redness on the fish is pretty normal. The fish lays in a box, and the blood pools in the low points of the body where it comes into contact with the box. It's what's called post-mortem lividity, and it's perfectly normal---it's not net rash. I have quite a few pictures of bass less than half that size with the same redness. There's nothing suspicious in my mind at this point. OTW did everyone an extreme dis-service yesterday by spreading some wild rumors, IMO.
As far as the 54" thing goes---anyone want to take a stab at the length of McReynolds' fish? I'll save you the trouble of looking it up--it was 53-1/2" long, but it had something like a 35" girth.
Actually, using the time honored seat of the pants estimator, length times girth squared dividied by 800, a 54" fish with a 35" girth would weigh........82.6875 pounds. "