I?m going to ask the forum for a big help. I?d like you all to document the length and weight of every smallmouth you catch next year, when possible. Send me PMs. We need length to the 1/16th or 1/8th and weight in lbs and ozs.
Why ? Because We?re going to create a SM GOLDEN RULE. Hopefully we can have something in stores by 2021 season.... Thank you in advance for any and all data you send !
Send me PMs starting next year. If you weigh all your fish, why not document the length ? Especially in the spring !!!
Essentially what is the point of putting out a Golden Ruler? for Smallmouth Bass??? All I can see right now in the difference is weight. We all know a 15 inch smallie weights less than a 15 inch largemouth. The only info I can see is having that weight on the ruler like that of a golden rule for largemouth. Most guys I know carry a scale. Myself included. Most tournaments are using weight. None except for preseason paper tournament use a ruler all day because paper tournaments use total length of the best 5 fish caught.
If I am fishing a tournament, I need a golden rule to make sure my first 5 are of legal length. I weigh every fish individually on a scale with a memory so I have total weight for 5 fish and an individual weight for each of the 5 for culling. As it is a noble idea, I do not see the use for it. I am willing to help you though. I have kept a log of all the fish I have caught for the last 30 years or so. Yeah, that is a lot of data but I do not see the point of a smallmouth golden rule. Just my 2 cents. Good luck.
It has been a long time since I posted here. I am glad to see that some still visit.
BD. ;D
I would rather see a Golden Rule event like Dan's fun event go to a MLF weigh and release event. You could check all scales at sign up with a 3 and 5 pound weight. Did one last year and it was fun. Not a fan of Golden Rule events as guys catch the same bed fish many times.
Good luck on your quest. Hope you get some data.
Quote from: dartag on January 06, 2020, 11:22:44 AM
I would rather see a Golden Rule event like Dan's fun event go to a MLF weigh and release event. You could check all scales at sign up with a 3 and 5 pound weight. Did one last year and it was fun. Not a fan of Golden Rule events as guys catch the same bed fish many times.
Good luck on your quest. Hope you get some data.
The MLF standard would be the best way to run an event like the GLB annual tournament. Going with total weight of all fish caught. I do not know if that will stop a guy from catching the same fish off the same bed. It seems it would level that playing field.
I just do not see the point of having a Golden Rule for Smallies based on that alone. Like I said, just my 2 cents.
BD. ;D
How many people on our forum would really sink to the level of catching the same big fish multiple times?? When I tally the sheets, there's rarely multiple weights of the same exact length on them. Not enough to even be noticeable.
The main challenge of any ruler method of a paper weigh-in is that we all know all fish of the same length do not actually weigh the same, but most people point out to me we are all under the same pluses and minuses in our event, so no biggy. I think most reasonable people recognize that, and I look at all of you was reasonable...
Doing an 'MLF' type of weigh-in is much different to me if you aren't all using the same calibrated scales. I've never had 2 culling scales weigh the same bass the same weight. We could all 'agree' all scales are 'close enough' but the reality with scales is lots of variability. For small prizes, maybe okay though I also don't want people poking holes in a bunch of bass (just a personal preference).
With the measuring board all it comes down to is trusting everyone does a similar, proper job of measuring the bass correctly - mouth closed and up against the end without any kind of trickery. I think we can all do a good enough job of that. I don't ever plan on having prizes valuable enough to have to worry about too many people doing any kind of funny business in these events anyway.
If you want to develop a smallmouth bass-specific catch-and-release measuring board you should just look up the most accepted formula on the Internet and base it off there. If you use only bass from St. Clair then the board will really mainly apply to St. Clair. Even on St. Clair, there are populations of long, streamlined bass, and populations of short, football bass in the system (another theory of mine).
So, even there some people would say this board is good, while some will say this board sucks... ;D The same thing will happen with someone catching smallmouth bass on Table Rock verses someone catching smallmouth bass on Lake Ontario. If you're a genius with access to design and production resources, you could offer multiple region and/or lake models for sale...?? You might sell as many or more though I have a feeling the 'MLF' of having paper tournaments may limit the market for measuring boards... we'll all find out.
There's so much variability around the entire smallmouth bass range that it will be similar everywhere. Heck, smallmouth bass in downtown Lansing in the Grand River are long, lean 'river' fish while there are smallies up on Charlevoix and Elk Lakes for example that are shaped like giant bluegills. The weight-to-length ratio for either will be dramatically different.
And you fall back on what do people do if they're often fishing waters with BOTH largemouth and smallmouth bass? Do they have to carry 2 boards?!? Do they have to use one board for the green bass and one for the brown bass?? Who wants to do that... I think these reasons are why no one has created a 'smallmouth bass' specific board yet.
Personally, I think the 'largemouth' board is close enough for everyone to agree it works. Many people would say smallies of the same length will weigh more, and they do on lots of lakes. Some will say the opposite, and you'll easily find examples for both if you get weights from a broad sample of waters. Good luck. I usually don't weigh or measure my fish. I just want to catch another one... ;)