Fish weight I must need an eye exam
Is it just me or do some of you see pictures of fish on the web and at your favorite bait store with 6 or 7 lbs marked on them but they have the body size of a 4 lb fish. I am loosing track of how many skinny short bass I am finding with figures such as 6.48 lbs marked on them. It is about time to get my eyes checked or maybe I'm underestimating some of my fish. I'm sure there are very few fishermen that would stretch the truth so there may be some uncalibrated scales out there.
RE: Fish weight I must need an eye exam
[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Mar-29-06 AT 07:34AM (EST)[/font][p]Its not your eyes--ITS THE CAMERA!!
I have made the same comments many times before and have seen numerous times, on this board and others, where people have commented that fish in photos had to be smaller than what was stated. Sometimes they look bigger then the stated size but usually they look smaller--at least to me. That is true even when I have caught the fish or when I took the pictures of my partner's fish.
I remember one particular trip we took to Northern Michigan and caught a mess of nice Smallmouths. We took pictures of any that were in the three to five pound range, which are good size Smallmounths up there. When we got home and downloaded the photos to our computers--all of them looked like they were DINKS. It was the same on both sets of photos. If I hadn't been in the pictures or the one taking the pictures I wouldn't have believed that any of them were three pounds, much less FIVE POUNDS.
Sometimes it seems like the bigger the picture fish is, the smaller it looks when you look at the picture. Another example, one time I was by myself when I caught a SIX POUND Largemouth (actually I have done that more than once) and laid it on the boat deck; took a picutre of it; then released it. When I got home and looked at the pictures, the fish looked to be no more than two to three pounds. But, I had laid him on one of the hatches, which are 22" wide and you could plainly see that he was longer than the hatch by at least an inch.
No, you don't need an eye exam.