Your Average 5 Fish Bag

[J Francho]

17 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

badgers

 

 

[Swamp Girl]

C'mon, gang, for Bob's sake, we really oughter talk about something else. 

[Nitro 882]

Belonged to a club in Massachusetts a few years back. They kept records of all the catches over 20 tourneys at different lakes. The average winning bag was just over 12 lbs.

[Swamp Girl]

4 minutes ago, Nitro 882 said:

Belonged to a club in Massachusetts a few years back. They kept records of all the catches over 20 tourneys at different lakes. The average winning bag was just over 12 lbs.

 

That surprises me. That's not much. 

[gim]

6 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

That surprises me. That's not much. 

 

And that's the average WINNING bag.  Not even the "average" bag of the common angler which is what the OP is asking for.

 

My guess that if the average winning bag is 12 pounds, then the rest of the field is averaging 6 or 8 pounds for a limit of 5 fish - about 1.5 pounds per bass.

 

15 pounds is a good sack of fish here in MN in most cases.  That's a 3 pound average for each fish.  Most lakes that have tournaments on a regular basis are tougher because of the increased pressure.  Those are not lakes I frequent.

[Nitro 882]

12 minutes ago, Nitro 882 said:

Belonged to a club in Massachusetts a few years back. They kept records of all the catches over 20 tourneys at different lakes. The average winning bag was just over 12 lbs.

Just fyi, I remember a 18# plus bag and I also remember a late March tourney where a guy won with 7 lbs. 6 oz. for 2 fish. One was 5#'s so he got "big bass" money also.

Don't get me wrong. Mass has some good bass to be caught. I wasn't in the tourney but I was at a tourney weigh-in and saw a 27# bag in Central Mass.

[Swamp Girl]

5 minutes ago, Nitro 882 said:

Just fyi, I remember a 18# plus bag and I also remember a late March tourney where a guy won with 7 lbs. 6 oz. for 2 fish. One was 5#'s so he got "big bass" money also.

Don't get me wrong. Mass has some good bass to be caught. I wasn't in the tourney but I was at a tourney weigh-in and saw a 27# bag in Central Mass.

 

27 is BIG!

[Logan S]

My club keeps accurate data on all of our tournaments going back 15+ years and hundreds of events.  We also rank tournaments on how good they are, all of this was/is done to help with scheduling our tournament trail each year....But is interesting on it's own as well.  We are based in MD and fish MD and VA waters mostly, average 15-20 boats and 30-40 anglers per tournament.

 

If I had to guess, my average 5 bass limit would be 10 to 12 lbs...probably the same for most, for every great day you'll have another one that's tough.  It all averages out to whatever the average keeper bass is in your area x5.  

[Swamp Girl]

Thanks, Logan. Your club did a good job displaying that information and I'm glad you shared it. Congrats on landing your club's biggest tourney bass in 2023 and those two winning 20+ bags!

[king fisher]

Depends on what lake I fish.  One lake 15 pounds is my average, another lake, I rarely catch  5 bass in one day, I  usually only get two to three bites a day, but the average bass I do catch is about 7 pounds.  My best lake which is somewhere south of Menderchuck, had my best average 5 bass bag this year, averaging around 30 pounds, with my best one day bag at 42 pounds.  I only fished this lake at the peak time, and was very lucky the few days I fished there.  I'm sure if I fished it more often, my average would be 15 to 20 pounds.

[Swamp Girl]

8 minutes ago, king fisher said:

I only fished this lake at the peak time, and was very lucky the few days I fished there.  I'm sure if I fished it more often, my average would be 15 to 20 pounds.

 

your humility + your huge fish make you a Bass Resource...

 

 

 

[TnRiver46]

My average 5 fish bag is 2 fish ????

[king fisher]

How many on spinnerbaits?

[Choporoz]

I wonder if any two anglers on this thread define '5 fish bag' the same way.  Is it best five any day that I fish at all?  Is it average best five over every 8 hours on the water?  If not in a tournament,  I don't weigh any fish that looks to be under 4, and I never count the fish I catch (unless it is like 2 or 3 .... that i don't have to).  So while I think I have a good eye, I guarantee that I really have no clue what sort of bag I have except in a tournament.   And, especially no clue about averages.... because it is easy to call to mind strings of good, 'average' days, I am just as certainly not thinking about factoring in the lousy days accurately in my head.  I think I have average days of 18 pounds, and average days of five pounds.

[TnRiver46]

35 minutes ago, king fisher said:

How many on spinnerbaits?

Negative 4 

[Team9nine]

3 hours ago, Logan S said:

My club keeps accurate data on all of our tournaments going back 15+ years and hundreds of events.  We also rank tournaments on how good they are, all of this was/is done to help with scheduling our tournament trail each year....But is interesting on it's own as well.  We are based in MD and fish MD and VA waters mostly, average 15-20 boats and 30-40 anglers per tournament.

 

If I had to guess, my average 5 bass limit would be 10 to 12 lbs...probably the same for most, for every great day you'll have another one that's tough.  It all averages out to whatever the average keeper bass is in your area x5.  

 

Great set of data that your club has documented! It's really easy to get the idea that big sacks, and big fish are being caught everywhere, all the time, by most based on Internet/Social media postings. The reality is much more like your tourney data shows; a lot of average/typical catches, and how truly rare big fish are or can be.

 

For example, I exported all your club's data and resorted through it, running a few stats. So with 192 events recorded comprising 256 tournament days, equating to roughly 60,000 angler hours over a period of 17 years, only 6 bass of 7 lbs. or more have been caught, with just a single 8 pounder. That's 10,000 angler-hrs to catch a single bass of that size. Even 6 pounders are relatively rare with just 31 caught over that period (~1,600 angler-hrs per fish of that size or bigger). On your waters, it's just as likely an event is won with a 3 lb class big bass as it is a 6 pound one. Four and five pound bass are by far the most common, and that's probably pretty typical for a majority of waters most of us fish (see chart of your BB data below). Tournament data I've pulled from my new location here in SC, though considerably less robust, matches your set well; Typically 12-18 pounds to win most events, with almost no bass over 8 pounds, and just a handful of 7's.

 

There are certainly lots of waters that produce above average fish, and states that kick them out regularly, just like there are anglers who have a knack for catching large bass more frequently than the masses. But in general, I'm convinced they're becoming more and more scarce. 

 

[Swamp Girl]

12 minutes ago, Team9nine said:

But in general, I'm convinced they're becoming more and more scarce. 

 

Sadly, that makes sense. I've never tournament fished, but I've read BR accounts of dead big fish floating at the release area the day following a tournament. I wish the bass boat anglers would follow the lead of the kayak anglers and take a quick photo on a bump board and release them immediately. Then show those photos at the big "measure-in" at the end of the tournament. It would still be suspenseful and exciting and it wouldn't remove the top genes from the lakes and rivers. 

 

I even cringe when an angler catches a nice bass and holds it up to the camera while delivering a monologue about to catch big ones. 

 

@Team9nine, I'm surprised that the guys in Mass are catching as many five pounders as four pounders. I catch about 5 four-pounders for every five-pounder. 

[Logan S]

48 minutes ago, Team9nine said:

 

Great set of data that your club has documented! It's really easy to get the idea that big sacks, and big fish are being caught everywhere, all the time, by most based on Internet/Social media postings. The reality is much more like your tourney data shows; a lot of average/typical catches, and how truly rare big fish are or can be.

 

For example, I exported all your club's data and resorted through it, running a few stats. So with 192 events recorded comprising 256 tournament days, equating to roughly 60,000 angler hours over a period of 17 years, only 6 bass of 7 lbs. or more have been caught, with just a single 8 pounder. That's 10,000 angler-hrs to catch a single bass of that size. Even 6 pounders are relatively rare with just 31 caught over that period (~1,600 angler-hrs per fish of that size or bigger). On your waters, it's just as likely an event is won with a 3 lb class big bass as it is a 6 pound one. Four and five pound bass are by far the most common, and that's probably pretty typical for a majority of waters most of us fish (see chart of your BB data below). Tournament data I've pulled from my new location here in SC, though considerably less robust, matches your set well; Typically 12-18 pounds to win most events, with almost no bass over 8 pounds, and just a handful of 7's.

 

There are certainly lots of waters that produce above average fish, and states that kick them out regularly, just like there are anglers who have a knack for catching large bass more frequently than the masses. But in general, I'm convinced they're becoming more and more scarce. 

 

It's certainly eye opening, for us the tournament scoring system helped a ton.  Some lakes/rivers had either good or bad reputations and there was always discussions about when we should schedule certain places.  Big winning weights, but poor results down the standings don't really mean it's a 'good' tournament...And conversely, tournaments with relatively low winning weights but tons of fish caught all they way down the standings aren't 'bad'.  

 

Still, the average 5 bass limit across ALL those tournaments and anglers?  Right at 10lbs .  

[Swamp Girl]

@Logan S: That makes your 20-lb. bags and big fish even more impressive. You're a good angler. 

[Team9nine]

1 hour ago, ol'crickety said:

@Team9nine, I'm surprised that the guys in Mass are catching as many five pounders as four pounders. I catch about 5 four-pounders for every five-pounder. 

 

Keep in mind this is just looking at the biggest bass for a single event, across all events, and not how many big fish of a certain weight were caught in events (if that makes sense). So big bass for an event could have been a single 5.5 pound fish, but there might have been 10 4 pound fish weighed in overall that wouldn't be reflected in the numbers I posted. Total size distribution for a body of water is usually a bell curve, most often centered around the 8"-16" size range, but not always, as some lakes have unusual size distributions due to things such as slot limits, missing year classes (bad spawns), etc. Generally though, much above 3 pounds, the next size class of fish becomes less numerous than its predecessor (4's less common than 3s; 5s less common than 4s; etc.).

[Catt]

This one y'all look at I've put anything together lately.

 

https://sealyoutdoors.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/TB23-SUNDAY-OVERALL-RESULTS.pdf

[Swamp Girl]

Thanks, @Team9nine. What you wrote is right.

 

Whoa, @Catt, that's big fish water.

[Catt]

3 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

Thanks, @Team9nine. What you wrote is right.

 

Whoa, @Catt, that's big fish water.

 

The is Sealy's Big Bass Splash, payout is per hour, & multiple places. 

 

For this one tournament on Toledo Bend 

Total weight: 3141.41

Total Fish: 754

Average: 4.17#

[Team9nine]

45 minutes ago, Catt said:

This one y'all look at I've put anything together lately.

 

https://sealyoutdoors.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/TB23-SUNDAY-OVERALL-RESULTS.pdf

 

Another great example of what I mentioned. You have a lake ranked by Bassmaster magazine more than once as the top bass lake in the country, and a huge 3 day event with an estimated 3,000+ anglers (estimated 63,000 angler-hours), and it only produced one 10-pound bass, no 9-pound bass, and just six 8-pound bass. Also, 4- and 5-pound bass accounted for over 80% of all the bass weighed-in receiving prizes.

 

[Catt]

@Team9nine That's one out of 7 tournaments annually & there's records for 10 yrs.

 

Ya might find a little different results. 🤔