How Much Does My Fish Weigh?

Jigfishn10 · July 15, 2021

A lot of anglers, me included, have found that they have a little time on their hands and want to go out to get a couple of casts in. You grab your rod and a few lures and off you go. You hook into a nice oinker, have no scale or measuring tools and post a pic asking about the weight of the fish.

Here's a way to get a ballpark weight - from a recent post I wrote:

"One thing you can do the next time you catch an oinker and don’t have anything to measure with is to lay the fish down and measure the fish with a piece of fishing line. Cut the line to the exact length of the fish. Use a second piece of fishing line and get the girth of the fish. Stuff both lines in your pocket and measure when you get home. There’s a fish calculator on this site - here - plug in the numbers and you can’t get a ballpark weight of your fish."

Italian ingenuity at work here! ?

TnRiver46 · July 15, 2021

Good post! @WRBhas been preaching the line measuring method on here for years, unfortunately I don’t think I’ve ever read a post where someone actually used it! I prefer making a notch on my rod to mark the length of the fish (doesn’t work for girth but I’ve never measured girth anyway) because I would not be able to distinguish which piece of line from all the other ones in my boat!

Jigfishn10 · July 15, 2021

44 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Good post! @WRBhas been preaching the line measuring method on here for years

Oops, sorry @WRB, my bad.

I can honestly say I never saw you post about using fishing line but I’m not doubting it either.

Glad you righted that ship @TnRiver46. Thank you for giving Tom the credit he deserves!

Sorry bass resource members. My intentions were all good.

TnRiver46 · July 18, 2021

On 7/15/2021 at 4:20 PM, Jigfishn10 said:

Oops, sorry @WRB, my bad.

I can honestly say I never saw you post about using fishing line but I’m not doubting it either.

Glad you righted that ship @TnRiver46. Thank you for giving Tom the credit he deserves!

Sorry bass resource members. My intentions were all good.

I Wasn’t calling you out for plagiarism buddy! Just saying great minds Think alike

the hardest part for me about measuring fish is getting them to hold still and close their mouth

Team9nine · July 18, 2021

I bank fish a lot and have found the easiest thing to do is just carry a $2 retractable (cloth) sewing tape measure in your pocket with you. They weigh next to nothing (plastic), and are about 2" in diameter and about 3/8" wide. You can measure the fish very accurately while holding it vertically in a matter of seconds, easily get a girth measurement if necessary (I rarely do), then snap a pic. When I get home, I use a relative weight table prepared by my local/regional fisheries biologist or similar type study that I have saved on my computer to get an accurate "guestimate" of the fishes weight if I'm curious. Very quick, accurate enough, and the fish is handled minimally, never touches the ground, and gets released promptly.