Length vs Weight

[Fishnwire]

What do you guys think?

 

A guy at work insistss that the average 20 inch smallmouth bass is usually 5 lbs or greater. I think a true fiver would go closer to 22 inches. I know girth is obviously a huge factor, so we're talking the average...not a football-like pig and not a skinny little rail. Average.

[brickNblock]

Ive never made the #5 club yet with smallies and they are in abundance where I am but,

Ive caught many a smallie around or close to 20" and find they are closer to 3 1/12 - 4 lb only.

Hope this helps.

[OhioFisherman]

Had a lot of 20 inch smallies on a scale at weigh in on this side of Erie, they are usually pushing 5, LOL fat southern gentlemen? Lots of food for them here, shiners, shad, gobies, lakes with a suspect bait fish population the might run lighter? They like crawfish but baitfish probably makes up most of their food. Erie can be alive with baitfish and shad at times, see them spotting all over.

 

Biggest one I saw personally at a weigh in was 24 inches and 7.2 pound at Lake Chautaqua in New York, healthy fat fish, and a live release, buddies son got it and enough of a bag with it to send me home with thoughts of fishing harder.

[bassslinger]

For a smallie be 5# at 20" it would be a thick fish. An average sized 22" is more like 5 pounds. A 20" largie can go 5# commonly.

[Stoty]

This will help.....

 

Fish Weight Calculator

[JPD]

On Erie and Lake Ontario a 20" fish is typically 5 pounds or more depending on the time of year. I had a 7.21 in a tournament that was only 21". The obviously are thicker come the fall and much skinnier after the spawn in early summer. The lightest legit 20" I saw was 4 pounds but this was right after the spawn on the New York side of Erie.

 

JP

[danbouck]

In Erie the usual 5 pounders that we get are about 19" - 20"

[bassslinger]

Are we talking a Great Lakes strain of smallmouth at 20"?. Big water smallies are quite different than inland, smaller waterbody fish. They grow, feed, migrate and the genetics make them almost a different sub species. Just like the walleyes and perch, pike and so on. A 20"er from a Great Lake and a 20" smallmouth from a Kawartha type lake probably have a 5+ year age and a pound in weight seperation.