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Incredible Smallmouth

rsimms

rsimms

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This is one smallmouth I just had to brag about. I often begin my fishing trips with clients drifting live bait for bass, stripe, smaller cats and even the occasional striper. We went through a couple of weeks that we were doing really well catching some quality smallmouth, however in the last few days the smallmouth have sort of disappeared on me.

On Saturday, fishing with Chris Drinnon and his Dad, Randy, we only caught one smallmouth... HOWEVER, it was a beast. 21 inches long with a 15 inch girth... basically 6 lbs. even. If you're only going to catch one, this is the one you want to catch. I know folks have caught larger smallmouth, but they are few and far between. And few of them as beautiful as this one.


Want to know what Chris did with it. Here's the answer:
[youtube]3BjRrnYF3U8[/youtube]
 

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Very nice!! I caught one on Cherokee lake years ago that was 22 1/2 long with a 19in. girth! I wish to this day I would have got her weighed. I did get a pic and released her!
 
walker":1hqln2oy said:
Very nice!! I caught one on Cherokee lake years ago that was 22 1/2 long with a 19in. girth! I wish to this day I would have got her weighed. I did get a pic and released her!
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Those measurements would mean that fish weighed 10.1 lbs.

There is a standard formula fisheries biologists use for calculating fish weights based on length/girth measurements. It is Length x Girth x Girth /800 = Weight.

I have crossed checked this formula on bass and catfish for years. I have never found it to be off more than 5%... and most of the time, with truly accurate measurements, it will be dead on.
 
Yalls fish must have lead in them lol. I caught one Saturday that was a shade over 22 inches, didn't measure girth but it was an average sized brown fish.. 4.47 lbs. beautiful fish nonetheless!!
 
Prowler":17nxagld said:
Yalls fish must have lead in them lol. I caught one Saturday that was a shade over 22 inches, didn't measure girth but it was an average sized brown fish.. 4.47 lbs. beautiful fish nonetheless!!
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it's just like people.... in determining weight, it really is all about the girth. :D Lot's of people are 5'10" ... but weigh the ones with a 32-inch waist versus the ones with a 44-inch waist.

There are lots of fish out there with with a "32 inch" waist... lean and mean.

In many cases, like people, it's a factor of age. Unlike people, fish never stop growing (getting longer). However with age, their length growth slows substantially, but the girth growth doesn't. In other words, like me, they get old and fat. :mrgreen:
 
The one I have on the wall was 22 1/2 inches. It weighed 6.5 pounds. She swallowed a rattle trap and bellied up almost instantly. Seems like it was 17 inch girth. The formula is different for small mouth vs large mouth. I'm 6'4 somewhere between 280 and 300 in this picture for reference. The largemouth was just over 8 pounds and swallowed a worm. The pic is from a weird angle making the small mouth look bigger. Yes, that's a really big crankbait!
 
We had a guy bring one to a weigh in last year that was 25 1/4 inches, 3.70 something lbs. just paper thin. Does that mean an old sick fish being that long but in poor shape? It was in August, so should've been recovered from the spawn if it was a female. The last couple years I've caught more smallmouth on center hill but also a lot more poor looking fish.
 
Prowler":3owg402e said:
We had a guy bring one to a weigh in last year that was 25 1/4 inches, 3.70 something lbs. just paper thin. Does that mean an old sick fish being that long but in poor shape? It was in August, so should've been recovered from the spawn if it was a female. The last couple years I've caught more smallmouth on center hill but also a lot more poor looking fish.
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Yea, I'd say that was a sick fish. Maybe old? 25.25 length smallmouth ... that's amazing!
 
Longest one iver ever seen. None of us has a golden rule long enough but luckily a guy had a Muskie measuring device so we could get an accurate measurement. It look pitiful, paper thin like a spawned out crappie.
 
I must have missed this post..... Had a great time fishing with Richard that day! If you have never fished with him I highly recommend it!
 

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