OK, Silly me. I will try it. 07/21/2012, around 9:50 AM, (check photo properties for digital information).
Length: 20 Inch+
Weight: 4.16 Pound
It is a smallie. Please beat me with a 5+Pound Large. Anything less than 5 pound is a cheap win against this smallie. LOL.
I have another one weighte 4.14, same length like twin.
Length: 20 Inch+
Weight: 4.16 Pound
It is a smallie. Please beat me with a 5+Pound Large. Anything less than 5 pound is a cheap win against this smallie. LOL.
I have another one weighte 4.14, same length like twin.
I found very interesting you always catch big fish and a lot of fish. Do you mind come on my boat and show me some trick? Any place you want go, be my guest.
I lost a 6 today but caught a 4.2. However for full disclosure I caught it at 8:49 am. I couldn't control when I was catching them lol. I have a shitty picture but have go pro video. Let me know if it won't count but I doubt it will hold up.
Im debating picking up a scale tonight. I dont usually find the need to use one and when I do I use the LxLxG / 1200 method for an estimation. However Im feeling pretty good about my trip tomorrow. A lot in my favor for the day and a solid 6-8 pounder is not uncommon.
O right this is the arrogant thread... I dont need a scale. Gift card or no, Im going to catch the biggest fish this weekend.
O right this is the arrogant thread... I dont need a scale. Gift card or no, Im going to catch the biggest fish this weekend.
http://www.bigindianabass.com/big_indiana_bass/how-common-are-5-pound-bass.html
How Common Are 5 Pound Bass?
By Brian Waldman
All fishermen are liars, except for you and me, and I'm not so sure about you. That is the quote on a small cedar plaque I have had for nearly 30 years. And while 'liars' is kind of a strong term, there is certainly this widely believed perception about anglers that they love to stretch the truth just a bit. Typically this happens in the retelling of a story and usually either pertains to the number of fish caught (because no one likes to admit they caught only one or two fish - or worse yet...none) or especially the size of the fish caught. We're all guilty of this, I'm certain at one point or another in our angling lives.
Ask a serious bass fisherman what he caught and without hesitation, an "eyeballed" fish grows. Suddenly the world is filled with guys who catch 4, 5 and 6 pounders. I don't know what it is about the 5 pound mark, but suffice it to say that any bass close to that mark will at some point exceed it in a future retelling. This is especially true with tourney anglers. They're always catching limits in practice and they always manage a 5 pound bass or two along the way. As a tourney angler myself over the past 20 years, I can't even begin to imagine all the tourneys that were won before they even started based on the practice reports. Everybody is killing them except you! But as I always like to say, the scales don't lie and the truth always comes out at weigh-in time.
Fortunately, many states have adopted a tournament reporting feature into their fishery departments. This is seen as a low cost way to capture lots of data on the general trends in bass populations in these states. Overall the data is fairly reliable, especially over time or as number of reports increase.
I'm not sure which state actually started the reporting trend, but many have caught on and they all seem to use a very similar and standardized format. You can view the most recent reports (2005) for Kansas, Alabama, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Mississippi with a simple Google search online. Many of these reports go back nearly 20 years for a given state and show some interesting trends. Of course, the part I am most interested in is the statistics concerning 5 pound bass.
I'll save you the gore of searching for and looking over all the numbers, but I have compiled all the data I could from these state reports concerning the hours to catch a 5 pound bass. One of the surprising things that came out of looking at all that data was how similar the time frames and numbers were from state to state. So after compiling reports from 6 states totaling over 18,000 tournaments and comprised of over 4 million angler-hours on the water, the average time it takes to catch a 5 pound bass works out to be 495.9 hours per fish. If you look at just the best lake in any given state for a year that has at least 5 reports for itself, and average these across states and years (again, striking similarity between states) you arrive at a best average of 165.5 angler-hours to catch a 5 pound bass.
Keeping in mind that all this data is compiled by bass tournament anglers and organizations, the target group most likely to have the best catch results for bass as compared to non-tournament or casual anglers, and you begin to realize that all those 5 pound bass everyone says they're catching probably isn't quite the truth.
So you now have the basis for comparison sake in your fishing adventures. Your best bet to crack that 5 pound barrier is to fish lightly pressured or private waters, intimately learn a particular public body of water, or focus on primarily "big bass" tactics and baits. Either way, be wary when the dock talk and fishing reports venture into the realm of all the large bass being caught. They are simply not that common on most waters.
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How Common Are 5 Pound Bass?
By Brian Waldman
All fishermen are liars, except for you and me, and I'm not so sure about you. That is the quote on a small cedar plaque I have had for nearly 30 years. And while 'liars' is kind of a strong term, there is certainly this widely believed perception about anglers that they love to stretch the truth just a bit. Typically this happens in the retelling of a story and usually either pertains to the number of fish caught (because no one likes to admit they caught only one or two fish - or worse yet...none) or especially the size of the fish caught. We're all guilty of this, I'm certain at one point or another in our angling lives.
Ask a serious bass fisherman what he caught and without hesitation, an "eyeballed" fish grows. Suddenly the world is filled with guys who catch 4, 5 and 6 pounders. I don't know what it is about the 5 pound mark, but suffice it to say that any bass close to that mark will at some point exceed it in a future retelling. This is especially true with tourney anglers. They're always catching limits in practice and they always manage a 5 pound bass or two along the way. As a tourney angler myself over the past 20 years, I can't even begin to imagine all the tourneys that were won before they even started based on the practice reports. Everybody is killing them except you! But as I always like to say, the scales don't lie and the truth always comes out at weigh-in time.
Fortunately, many states have adopted a tournament reporting feature into their fishery departments. This is seen as a low cost way to capture lots of data on the general trends in bass populations in these states. Overall the data is fairly reliable, especially over time or as number of reports increase.
I'm not sure which state actually started the reporting trend, but many have caught on and they all seem to use a very similar and standardized format. You can view the most recent reports (2005) for Kansas, Alabama, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Mississippi with a simple Google search online. Many of these reports go back nearly 20 years for a given state and show some interesting trends. Of course, the part I am most interested in is the statistics concerning 5 pound bass.
I'll save you the gore of searching for and looking over all the numbers, but I have compiled all the data I could from these state reports concerning the hours to catch a 5 pound bass. One of the surprising things that came out of looking at all that data was how similar the time frames and numbers were from state to state. So after compiling reports from 6 states totaling over 18,000 tournaments and comprised of over 4 million angler-hours on the water, the average time it takes to catch a 5 pound bass works out to be 495.9 hours per fish. If you look at just the best lake in any given state for a year that has at least 5 reports for itself, and average these across states and years (again, striking similarity between states) you arrive at a best average of 165.5 angler-hours to catch a 5 pound bass.
Keeping in mind that all this data is compiled by bass tournament anglers and organizations, the target group most likely to have the best catch results for bass as compared to non-tournament or casual anglers, and you begin to realize that all those 5 pound bass everyone says they're catching probably isn't quite the truth.
So you now have the basis for comparison sake in your fishing adventures. Your best bet to crack that 5 pound barrier is to fish lightly pressured or private waters, intimately learn a particular public body of water, or focus on primarily "big bass" tactics and baits. Either way, be wary when the dock talk and fishing reports venture into the realm of all the large bass being caught. They are simply not that common on most waters.
TrackBack
78% of all statistics are nonsense (including this one). Analyzing data is my job and a number of things are standing out to me in this article.
The data was taken from tournament fishing. Do people fish the same way in a tournament as they would for leisure? Is there more or less commotion in the water on the day of a tournament? Are tournaments held in popular fishing lakes, or secluded fishing holes?
I would agree that this isnt some lake in Florida with bassmaster anglers rolling in and pulling out 30 pound stringers. If you are going to the local popular lake, getting in line behind all the other boats at the ramp and spending the day on the lake it is rare to pull a 5 pounder out. The hours the article are reporting are probably spot on. However the statistics missed on a key element.
Im not a fan of Charlie Moore, but I did catch one statement he made that I do agree with. I dont remember it exactly so I will paraphrase "If you want to catch big bass you have to go where no one else fishes". There are a lot of people out there who have their "honey holes" and secret spots. Anyone who has access to a pond on private property, or secluded area can attest to the statement made by Charlie. In my days I have a few places that I fish and no one else does, and other places that few know about. My favorite place to fish (where I am going tomorrow) requires me to row a canoe a little over a mile up a river, drag my canoe through the woods to get to a place that is what most people would call a swamp. Not many people are stupid enough to even try it and if they did they would see the swamp and turn the other way. However there are a ridiculous number of pigs in that swamp. So when people say they pull 5 pounders out regularly and they are fishing secluded places like that, I believe them. The down side is that there is no money, glory, or trophies associated with this. All you get out of it is a story and a picture for facebook and forums.
The data was taken from tournament fishing. Do people fish the same way in a tournament as they would for leisure? Is there more or less commotion in the water on the day of a tournament? Are tournaments held in popular fishing lakes, or secluded fishing holes?
I would agree that this isnt some lake in Florida with bassmaster anglers rolling in and pulling out 30 pound stringers. If you are going to the local popular lake, getting in line behind all the other boats at the ramp and spending the day on the lake it is rare to pull a 5 pounder out. The hours the article are reporting are probably spot on. However the statistics missed on a key element.
Im not a fan of Charlie Moore, but I did catch one statement he made that I do agree with. I dont remember it exactly so I will paraphrase "If you want to catch big bass you have to go where no one else fishes". There are a lot of people out there who have their "honey holes" and secret spots. Anyone who has access to a pond on private property, or secluded area can attest to the statement made by Charlie. In my days I have a few places that I fish and no one else does, and other places that few know about. My favorite place to fish (where I am going tomorrow) requires me to row a canoe a little over a mile up a river, drag my canoe through the woods to get to a place that is what most people would call a swamp. Not many people are stupid enough to even try it and if they did they would see the swamp and turn the other way. However there are a ridiculous number of pigs in that swamp. So when people say they pull 5 pounders out regularly and they are fishing secluded places like that, I believe them. The down side is that there is no money, glory, or trophies associated with this. All you get out of it is a story and a picture for facebook and forums.
I think Brian Waldman says public water. My personal experience is fresh water bass is very hard to surpass the 5 pound mark especially in new england. 5.0 is a magic number. I have a digital scale with me. Everytime I thought the fish is like a 5 pounder, the scale proved me wrong just about everytime.
intimately learn a particular public body of water
The piece about the public body of water was in regards to how to catch big bass.
I agree that people exaggerate... It is what is it. But to post an article that people are liars and back it up with nonsense statistics pulled from tournament fishing is a bit weak. The premise of the entire article is based on his concept that people fishing in tournaments (and only during tournaments) yield bigger fish than people who dont (or are not in a tournament at that time). Meanwhile I dont know anyone whose personal best came in a tournament. I dont know of anyone whose personal best came from a body of water that hosts tournaments. I think it is a New England thing simply because once word gets out that a body of water is a hot fishing spot everyone and their grandmother fishes the crap out of it.
Im from RI so Ill use it as an example but what do we have for bodies of water that host tournaments? Johnsons Pond, and Echo Lake. They are weak places to fish at best. You can send KVD to Johnsons Pond vs a 15 year old kid with a bucket of frogs down at the pond behind uncle smitty's farm and my money is on the kid for lunker of the day. Ish Monroe, Chris Lane, and Dean Rojas at Echo Lake vs my girlfriend at the local golf course (golf courses are awesome by the way) and lunker of the day will probably go to my girl.
The point is that big fish are rare, but they are not rare enough to call someone a liar if they say they caught one. There are people out there who do catch them regularly. Tomorrow I hope to break the five pound mark a couple of times. I better not get my hopes up since the article basically shows that I have a better chance of getting pregnant than having that happen... Especially since its not a tournament. LOL
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