I’d posit that this Associated Press reporter was a bit more excited about the amazing discovery of a fisherman’s ring in the belly of a bass (though it’s a novelty that someone cleaned the bass planning to eat it). That could explain why the story that most folks read doesn’t reveal how the heck a bass was able to abscond with a fisherman’s tech school class ring 21 years ago.

No fish story — long-lost ring found inside bass
Associated Press
Dec. 3, 2008
BUNA (Texas) — The one that didn’t get away held an unlikely surprise for a Texas man.

The blue-stoned class ring of Joe Richardson, engraved with his name, turned up in

side an 8-pound bass 21 years after he lost it while fishing on Lake Sam Rayburn.

“My first reaction was — you gotta be kidding,” he said today.

The fisherman who discovered the tarnished ring inside his catch contacted Richardson on Nov. 28 in Buna, about 100 miles northeast of Houston, after tracking him down with help from the Internet.

His fisherman hero asked to remain anonymous.

Richardson, 41, said he lost the ring about two weeks after his 1987 graduation from Universal Technical Institute in Houston. His mom had bought it for about $200 and wasn’t pleased when it went missing.

As a mechanic, Richardson said he doesn’t wear jewelry so he tucked the undamaged ring away.

“I have not cleaned it,” he said. “I told my wife I don’t want to clean it.”

But to the rescue rides local reporter Lisa Richardson of The Bee (Silsbee, Texas):

Fishy story has familiar ring to it
Thursday, December 4, 2008
By LISA RICHARDSON
Special to The Bee

…That’s when we received a phone call that would take my husband, Joe, back in time. As he told me the story, we both stood in amazement at the miraculous events unfolding. We both knew that what was happening would leave us with even more gratitude on this Thanksgiving weekend.

Joe began to tell me about the story that began 21 years earlier.

He had just received his class ring after graduating from Universal Technical Institute in Houston. The ring was too big, slipping on and off of his finger easily.

During a fishing trip with his cousin and close friend Lloyd Curtis, Joe clearly remembers standing on the bow of the boat when his ring slipped off his finger, hit the side of the boat and fell into the water.

You can read Lisa’s article at silsbeebee.com.