I once watched a TV fisherman catch a bass while sitting in the front of his boat. He held it up and announced, “This is a solid little fellow — maybe 2 or 2 1/2 pounds.” Then he stepped to the middle of the boat (closer to the camera man), unhooked the hot bait and commented it wasn’t “unusual to hook 2 1/2 to 3 pound fish like this using this lure.” Once the fish was off the hook, Mr. TV Fisher moved in to provide a close-up look at the fish and the camera man showed the release and the fish bolting into the depths.
As the fish went back into the lake the star of the show made one last comment. “Let’s see if we can get another one. I love catching those three or four pounders like the one I just let go.”
According to the angler, the fish went from “maybe two pounds” to as much as four pounds in about half a minute. Obviously, it didn’t actually double in size (except in the fisherman’s mind) but realistically, it did look a bit larger as the fish was held closer to the camera.
The same phenomenon seems to occur every time fish, fishermen and cameras all get in the same vicinity and that has occurred with increasing frequency in the last decade or more with the widespread use of phone cameras. Also, thanks to the popularity of social media, fishing specific websites and phone apps, there are a staggering number of places for lucky anglers to share the photos of their noteworthy catches.
One might think photographic evidence would make anglers better — I hesitate to say more honest — when guessing the size of the fish they just pulled from the water. It’s one thing to “claim” to have caught a big fish, it’s another thing to have a photo of it to back up the claim.
So is a photograph really good evidence of how much a fish really weighs? About the best one could say is it’s better than a guy with no photo claiming to have caught a whopper and just holding his empty hands spread out to show the nose to tail length. Slightly!
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission partnered with Bass Pro Shops recently to put some real numbers to the fish photos submitted to their catch and release Trophy Catch Program. Only bass over eight pounds are eligible and each entry had to be photographed both in the grip of the angler and being weighed on a scale.
So what they did next was display a bevy of known weight fish being held in grip and grin poses by fishermen and women then ask people to guess the weight of each bass. Called the Eyeball Challenge, thousands of people participated in rounds one and two to qualify for round three. In this group were fishermen with a lifetime of experience as well as novices. They were each shown 24 photos of eight-pound or larger bass and asked to judge the weight from the photo.
The average deviation from the correct weight was 2.22 pounds — plus or minus. So for every participant who guessed a 10.22 pound fish weighed eight-pounds even, there was another who thought that fish weighed 12.44 pounds! Some people were more spot on than others but even the guesses from the top five percent of the participants were off an average of 1.35 pounds.
Though this contest was held using largemouth bass, it’s not just bass lovers who take photos of the big fish they catch and make claims about the weight (or length) of the fish in the photo. Walleye fishers do it, salmon anglers do it, pike, perch and bluegill guys and gals deservedly like to photograph their trophy catches.
How the fish and angler are posed makes a difference. Holding a fish at arm’s length closer to the camera usually makes a fish look larger, but that pose also produced the best “guesses” from the participants in the Eyeball Challenge. Ultimately, the only way to positively “prove” the length or weight of a trophy catch is to actually weigh it on a scale or lay it on a ruler.
In actual practice — except in a tournament situation — does it really make much of a difference? Catching a nice fish, whether it’s a nine-inch bluegill or a nine-pound walleye should be a source of pride to the angler and snapping a photo of the fish is a quick, easy method to preserve that memory.
November 09, 2020 at 11:24PM
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Fish Photos: Proof positive or risky evidence | Lifestyle | newsbug.info - Newsbug.info
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