need help evaluating a fish please....

[whitearrow]

 good morn fellas. well, yesterday afternoon was epic for my bud that caught a hawg. i'm posting a pic for y'all to eval for an approximate size as this fish caught us all by surprise. i mean he wasn't even going fishing until me and my sons showed up and he grabbed a rod and joined us. and that set the stage for the biggest bass of his life so far..........in his own front yard to say the least. anywho neither of us had scales or even a tape measurer on us and his line broke as he got the fish to the bank and he went in after her.sounds like a story right??? we took a few pics and he released her back to the deep. i have an approximate in my mind but i wanted y'alls thoughts on it please.

edit to add: i think i got the pics loaded up right this time but they are about 3 post down.

thanks,

Big Ed

[JediAmoeba]

The picture link is broken... The fish story gets bigger!

[whitearrow]

the pic isn't showing up under my "story"? it is when i click on the thread.

thanks,

Big Ed

[whitearrow]

ok fellas i'm trying this again so maybe y'all can actually see the pics.

[MN Fisher]

5 minutes ago, whitearrow said:

ok fellas i'm trying this again so maybe y'all can actually see the pics.

One thing that would help - how tall is he?  If he's 5'4" it's not as big as it seems, if he's 6'4" it's bigger than it seems.

[whitearrow]

6'

i guess i was judging off the 18" lacrosse boots some too.

Big Ed

[MN Fisher]

A little research - measuring myself. At 6'1", my forearm is 11" long so call his 10.5". Given that he's holding his arm at an angle, I'll say 8"-8.5" in 'perspective. A little work in my picture editor and the fish is just under 3 forearm lengths. So I'd say 23"-24" in length which translates to (for a healthy fish...which this one looks very healthy) around 7#-8#

 

Of course I could be wildly off base with that...but that just my 'guesstimate'.

[whitearrow]

i've got a 7.5lb bass mounted and this one would dwarf that one. i said 9lb and maybe double digits. the fish is at least 24" long and a fatty to be w/o eggs as this is july and they spawn in march-april here in the deep south.

thanks for the thoughts and please keep em coming,

Big Ed

[Choporoz]

Nice fish.  I'd guess exactly between 6 and 10 pounds

[Dwight Hottle]

My guess is between 8-9 lbs. 

[whitearrow]

7 minutes ago, Dwight Hottle said:

My guess is between 8-9 lbs. 

thanks dwight. i guessed 9lb myself and if she lived after we put her back maybe she will be 10lb next spring with a belly full of eggs. she was the biggest bass i've ever held.

thanks again,

Big Ed

[soflabasser]

Nice bass. Next time measure the length and girth to get a close estimate of the weight of the bass. Use the following formula to get the weight estimate;

 

Length X Length X Girth / 1200 = Estimated weight of bass in pounds

 

You can use a piece of fishing line to measure the length and girth. Best choice is to use a accurate scale but using the above formula is better than guessing a weight.

[whitearrow]

12 minutes ago, soflabasser said:

Nice bass. Next time measure the length and girth to get a close estimate of the weight of the bass. Use the following formula to get the weight estimate;

 

Length X Length X Girth / 1200 = Estimated weight of bass in pounds

 

You can use a piece of fishing line to measure the length and girth. Best choice is to use a accurate scale but using the above formula is better than guessing a weight.

nice to know sofla but i was 200 yds to the truck and his house was 100 yds. guess i sacrificed the tape measure to keep the bass alive. i did have a tape measure in my truck and my phone. trust me i learned some hard lessons that day. keep my phone,tape measure and stringer on my person no matter what. like i said this bass caught us both by surprise in that my bud wasn't even planning on fishing that afternoon and was just walking around casting a lizard and low and behold here comes this. if you look close you can see the hook and lizard still in the fishes mouth where his line broke when he was trying to hoss her up on the bank. 

Big Ed

[soflabasser]

 That fish is a beauty and you should be proud of catching it, especially if you caught it from public waters. I would say that bass is somewhere around the high 7's to low 8 pound range. As for keeping it alive I have released several bass bigger than that one and none have died even though I got length, girth, and weighted on scale pictures of those fish. There are times I only measure them if they are over 24 inches and even then I only measure the length of the bass and release them as soon as possible. Fishing in the Summer is risky since post delayed mortality increases with increased water temperature so I try to target big bass in the late afternoon/nightime and leave the daytime for other species that can handle the heat better.

[Sam]

15 pounds. No question about it.

 

Just tell everyone the lady is 15 pounds of pure beauty.

 

Who can argue with you?  

[AlTheFisherman313]

I’d say 10. I caught the fish of a lifetime for Michigan at 7.8 pounds our state record is only 11-12 pounds, so anything above 5 is a big ole bass in the north haha. 

 

The reason im going 10 is that fish looks to be 25-28 inches long and they don’t even get that fat in Michigan the 21 incher I pulled out last week was like 4.9, which is on the low side for a bass that size, but that thing is a strait pig. 

[Koz]

18 hours ago, whitearrow said:

nice to know sofla but i was 200 yds to the truck and his house was 100 yds. guess i sacrificed the tape measure to keep the bass alive.

 

Next time you're in that situation use two pieces of fishing line and cut one to the length and one to the girth.

[whitearrow]

17 hours ago, Sam said:

15 pounds. No question about it.

 

Just tell everyone the lady is 15 pounds of pure beauty.

 

Who can argue with you?  

sam and al i like your thought process ha! if she survives and grows into that head next spring i believe she will be a bonafide  double digit bass. she was healthy just not the big gut from eggs. man, i hope she made it as i'd love my 15yr old son to catch her and get an accurate weight and measurements THIS time.

thanks men,

Big Ed

Just now, Koz said:

Next time you're in that situation use two pieces of fishing line and cut one to the length and one to the girth.

will do koz. man, we were jacked up on adrenaline,i felt like a 15yr old boy again,that most thought processes went down the drain. my main thought was we need to get her back in the water but i knew the man wanted a pic too hence the "i'll keep my stringer on me too so i could string her up and put her back in the water until he got back with the wife/camera".

thanks,

Big Ed