YouTube weight guessing

[Swamp Girl]

If you watch YouTube fishing videos like I do, you might also like to guess the weights of bass before they're weighed. If you play this game, how do you fare? I'm pretty darn good at guessing the weights. In a video, you get to see the fish turned this way and that before it's weighed, which allows me to be accurate. Sure, you might see the fish thrust at the camera to make it appear larger, but before that and after that, you see it in a more telling context.

 

I am better than nearly all the YouTube anglers who also guess how much their bass weigh before weighing them.

 

Conversely, in a photo with no video, I am clueless when a fish is thrust at the camera to make it appear bigger. 

[Pat Brown]

I think it's a skill that can be learned from watching too many YouTube videos probably but I don't think it's really any easier or harder without at least some frame of reference.  Lenses and cameras are weird.

 

I can usually guess pretty well ONCE I have seen a YouTuber weigh one fish of any size as a reference but before that, it's kinda hard to tell unless I know how big persons arms or hands are or how their lens is set up etc etc.

 

Also the single most deceptive and often times most critical measurement of a bass is WIDTH which we never see on pictures or even most videos.  Some bass are tall but flatter.  Some bass are rotund and shorter.  Some are both.  Hard to tell without some good thorough reference material.

[Team9nine]

Never really tried to do that, but I don’t watch a lot of those type videos. I can say, and I think this probably goes for most anglers, I’ve caught and weighed/measured so many of my own fish over the years that I’ve become a pretty good judge of weight for any I catch whether I pull out the scales or not. You frequently see some of the guys on tour do this with catch-weigh-release format events and they’re usually pretty darn accurate. 

[GRiver]

I am horrible at guessing their weights, even if I’m holding them, or looking at a picture. 

[A-Jay]

I Always guess and then check to see how I did.

Either way, I STILL BIG EYE bass all the time.

Hate when they shrink on the scale.

A-Jay

[Swamp Girl]

55 minutes ago, Pat Brown said:

Also the single most deceptive and often times most critical measurement of a bass is WIDTH which we never see on pictures or even most videos. 

 

I think that width is best seen on a bump board. When a fat bass is on a flat surface, it becomes convex. You can see their thickness even on shorter bass, like this one:

 

 

Then there are bass that add ounces by being deep, like this one:

 

 

Length is another great way to gain weight. I caught two 6.7-poundish bass in 2023 that weren't fat and weren't deep: just long.

 

They're all so different, which is why I love looking at pics of them.

 

 

[Bankc]

I haven't tried it, but I've got to be terrible at it.  I'm terrible at guessing the weight of the fish I catch.  I'm not even good at reading digital scales.  Is that 2.15 lbs., or 2 lbs., 15 oz.?  Because it looks like a solid 6lbs. to me.  

[GreenPig]

I'm good in person up 6 lbs but so so to horrible with pics and videos.

[PaulVE64]

I'm okay at guessing mine.

Atleast the ones I dont weigh

[A-Jay]

15 minutes ago, PaulVE64 said:

I'm okay at guessing mine.

At least the ones I don't weigh

No way ~ 

I bet you're 100% Right on the Money / Dead On with those fish.

I know I always am. 

Oh, and we're not ?

A-Jay

[hokiehunter373]

I feel like I'm better guessing the ones on video than my own.  Too much adrenaline on my own makes me think each one is a 10 until it hits the scale as another 3.5 lol

[Zcoker]

Last time I weighed a big fish it flopped around on the scale and fell off back into the water, missing me out on a 25-26 inch measurement! I try to hold them close to my body for actual reference. Quick measurement, quick photo, and then off she goes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TnRiver46]

Dustin Connell guesses correctly a scary amount of times before his boat Marshall weights them, to the ounce 

[Bluebasser86]

I'm pretty good at guessing, but it's a lot harder on a video than in person. I don't understand challenging the size of someone's fish who obviously has weighed their fish though. I posted a short of a 22" fish my buddy caught last week that weighed a little over 6lbs and someone commented that it was "More like 2lbs". It doesn't really "look" like a 6 pounder in the video, but they never do when Jon is holding them. Jon is 6' 4" and well over 300lbs, he makes everything look smaller. I saw the fish in real life though, it was a toad and just a hair shy of 22", every bit of what the scale said it weighed. I don't know why people need to challenge a fish's weight like that. 

 

[AlabamaSpothunter]

On 3/19/2024 at 12:51 PM, hokiehunter373 said:

I feel like I'm better guessing the ones on video than my own.  Too much adrenaline on my own makes me think each one is a 10 until it hits the scale as another 3.5 lol

One thing I've noticed in terms of biases is that the harder a 5+ fights, the more likely I'm to overestimate it's weight.    

 

The adrenaline factor is very much real.   

[Swamp Girl]

12 minutes ago, Bluebasser86 said:

Jon is 6' 4" and well over 300lbs, he makes everything look smaller.

 

Conversely, it used to be common for musky anglers to pose a child beside their catch: A fish looks bigger beside a small person and smaller beside a large person.

[king fisher]

I am so accurate at estimating the weight of my bass, that I don't even use a scale anymore.  When I did use a scale it was amazing to me how often a scale will be off.  The strange thing is I have owned a dozen scales over the years, and they all weighed my fish lighter than the true weight.  I have never owned a scale that weighs heavy, but if I ever find one, I may start using a scale again.  All the You Tube videos I have seen the scales are way off on the high side.  I wonder where they buy their scales.

[Swamp Girl]

Like @king fisher, my scale can't be trusted. It weighs approximately half of the fish's actual weight, so I use it to get that half weight and then multiply by two. 

 

There's another scale I wouldn't trust and that's @AlabamaSpothunter's. After the amazing winter he's had, after weighing scores of five, six, seven, and eight-pound bass, his scale has to worn out, right? I'd buy him a new one, but the way he boats the toads, he'd wear that one down to a nub in a couple weeks too. 

 

Seriously, Alex's fish are so fat that I look at them and think his scale is underweighing them. 

[casts_by_fly]

I'll mentally make a guess on videos, but I'm not bothered about how accurate it is.  Camera angles, distances, and lens focal lengths all will distort how big a bass looks.  The ones I do care about my guesses a little more are when I'm watching the pro tournaments that they are weighing them live.  After a couple weighed fish I'm usually within 3-4 ounces.  The comment about DC above is correct.  Wheeler was also really good about getting it within an ounce or two, especially when they are catching schools of a given year class.

 

My own caught fish are usually pretty close.  It takes weighing a few to get your eye in, but after that I'm within 4-6 ounces most of the time.  I'm better at estimating length so I start there and that defaults to a given weight that's usually close enough.  

[Swamp Girl]

I just know that I'd like to fish with the woman below. I'd have her hold all my bass for photos. Her doll hands would make my fish look HUGE:

 

[Woody B]

I've never tried guessing weight in videos.  I'm not much of a video watcher.  I can guess weight pretty good once a fish is in hand.   Pictures are often very misleading.  (and not on purpose, at least on my part)   I try to fill the camera so I get a good picture of a fish.  It's not "trickery" on my part.  I usually just take "selfies" because it's easy.  After a fish get's a certain size it's hard to take a selfie.  I have a holder for my camera.  I set a time, then get in the screen.   The first Bass pictured is over 1/2 pound heavier than the 2nd one.  The 2nd one "looks" bigger because I just took a selfie with it.