Fish Weights

I posted a picture to a Facebook carp fishing group recently of a fish my wife caught. It was a very nice fish. A fish I would have been very proud to catch myself. The fish weighed 24 pounds and 2 ounces.

Someone posted a comment on the picture insinuating that the fish did not weigh that much. I didn't really think much of it at the time, but the more I think about it I'm bothered by his comment. The comment has since been removed by the fellow who made it, but that doesn't mean he didn't really mean it.

I do use a hand held digital scale, but I regularly ensure it's accuracy by weighing a 15 pound kettle bell that I have on hand. The kettle bell weighs in at 1 ounce below 15 pounds on my digital scale.

If anything, I under weigh the fish I post to the web. My Resistance Tackle sling weighs 1 pound and 10 ounces when it's completely dry. So when I weigh a fish I subtract 2 pounds when the sling is dry. If the sling is wet, I weigh the fish first and then re-weigh the sling after returning the fish to the water and subtract the difference. The sling is heavy from the water absorbed when returning the fish to the water. Most of the time I just round the weights down to the nearest pound for the sake of simplicity unless it's close to a new personal best.

For the fish in question yesterday, I am guessing the photograph caused the commenter to question the fish's weight. But what the commenter didn't realize is the fish would not hold still long enough to snap a high quality picture with our cell phone. The fish had one thing in mind - returning to the water as quickly as possible. If the fish is wiggling when the picture is snapped, the tail generally bends forward or backward, which distorts the true size and length of the fish.

Some fish cooperate and we get quality pictures. Some fish don't cooperate as much. They are only fish after all and we catch them because it's fun; it's exciting and we enjoy showing them to friends and family.

I post pictures of the big fish and the small fish a like. Whether I catch a 9 pound fish, or a 24 pound fish; I enjoy it the same. I am not a sponsored angler. I don't have a professional photographer follow me around to take pictures of my catches. Those that know me understand that I do not have a big ego; so I have no reason to say a fish weighs more than it really does.

I hope this clears up any doubts any past or future readers have about pictures of fish I post and how much they weigh.

Here's a blooper picture of a 9 pound fish I caught yesterday. I don't remember what I was looking at, but it must have been interesting.

First fish caught using Trilene Big Game fused to Power Pro with a uni knot

We do our best to get high quality pictures, but sometimes lighting and background plays a big part I the picture quality. It's generally a bad idea to take pictures with a water background like in the picture above. In the interest of time, we still do it sometimes - especially for average size fish.