A bit of line gives you the measure of your fish

[Spiel]

A bit of line gives you the measure of your fish

 

 

February 21, 2009

TERRY CURTIS / northumberlandtoday.com

 

Picture this. You've just landed the fish of a lifetime and want to weigh it, then reached into your tackle bag or box to find your weigh scales, only to discover you've left them home.

 

Or maybe you forgot to put a new battery in your digital scales and can't get a reading on them. I'll admit to doing that myself, and it's pretty frustrating!

 

Then you think, "Well, I can at least measure my fish." You reach into your gear and start cussing because you also forgot to bring a tape measure. Some days go like that, don't they?

 

I was reminded of this last weekend when I was talking to one of the guys who run Advanced Taxidermy, a business that makes beautiful fish mounts without having an actual fish body to work with. All their mounts are artificial, but you'd never know it to look at them. There is no need to kill a fish now to get a mount; all they need is the length and girth of the fish and a couple of good quality pictures of it and your masterpiece is created!

 

So, where is all this preamble leading us?

 

Let's go back to the beginning. You catch that big fish and want to know what it weighs, but you have no scales or even a tape measure with you. What are you going to do?

 

Simple! Lay a length of your fish line from the tip of the fish's jaw to the tip of its tail and cut it off. Then wrap another piece of your line around the widest girth of the fish and cut it off. Put the two pieces of line in your pocket to take home and if you remembered your camera, snap a couple of photos before releasing the fish, if that's what you choose to do with it.

 

Once you're home, you've got it made. Finding the weight of your fish will be no problem because I'm going to give you a chart that is very accurate for estimating five species of fish. All you need to find it is the length of the two pieces of line you cut off and that missing tape measure.

 

Here are the formulas for these species:

 

* Walleye: weight (in pounds) = length (in inches) X length X length divided by 2,700.

 

* Bass: weight = length X length X girth divided by 1,200.

 

* Pike: weight = length X length X length divided by 3,500.

 

* Trout: weight = length X girth X girth divided by 800.

 

* Sunfish: weight = length X length X length divided by 1200.

 

I spent a few minutes last night testing these formulas out by measuring a couple of mounted fish I have, working out the formulas, then comparing the results to the actual weights of the mounts (which are already recorded on them because I had weighed them when I caught them) and the results are very close. In fact, on my 23-pound-four-ounce pike the formula was off by only two ounces! How's that for accuracy?

 

Cut this chart out of the paper and put it somewhere you can easily find it; it's very handy for catch and release fishing or if you want a mount made.

 

Best bet for ice fishing this week? I know some guys who were on Lake Simcoe Wednesday and the white fish were very active. I'm also hearing jumbo perch are being taken in about 26 feet of water off the shores of Georgina Island.

 

Crappie and some bonus walleye are still being caught in Lake Scugog, but the action for the crappie has slowed down quite a bit.

 

Bay of Quinte? Very sporadic, to say the least. Save your gas!

 

Anyone for rainbow trout? They're starting to show up in the streams flowing into Lake Ontario and the numbers will only increase as we move closer to the month of March.

 

There you have it. You can ice fish or fish open water, whichever tickles your fancy -- and there's nothing like getting your fancy tickled, is there?