PanamaJack
20-06-2006, 12:13
When I first started Marlin fishing in the late 1970s the norm was to hang up every fish - weigh it and have your picture taken with it. But fortunately now attitudes have changed completely, and very few fish - even in tournaments - are now killed. I can't at this moment remember who said it but the 'strap line' was - a gamefish is too valuable to catch only once. Wise words indeed.
Any rate when I look through our Notable Fish lists, that are recorded on our Club's web site - http://www.scbi.org.uk, I'm aware that by far the majority of weights have been qualified as ‘Released’ or ‘Tag & Release’, and this reflects what is that growing ethos amongst our membership.
Where do these estimates come from though? In the majority of cases they are skippers’ estimates, but obviously, as you’re aware, estimating fish weights is far from being an exact science. And I suspect, as less and less gamefish are killed, the base against which skippers can ‘accurately’ estimate weights will become somewhat vaguer.
Still isn’t that the first question most of us ask when we’ve released a Marlin – just how big did the skipper think it was? Well it’s his best guess but, as I said, nothing more than that an estimate. Realistically it’s just a relative qualification as to whether it was ‘big’ or ‘small’. And one, given that the judgement of the skipper can be likened to that of say a Cricket Umpire, most are prepared to accept, certainly for the award of our Club Trophies. (You'll see I deliberately didn't use 'Football Referee' because just about everyone queries their judgement!)
But, what about our Club Records? Now that’s something, in my view, we’ve quite rightly resisted. Going that route there’re just too many intangibles which will lead to undoubted conflict.
The IGFA - obviously concerned about potentially being characterised as an organisation that ‘promotes’ the needless killing of fish - have recently been considering the possibility of introducing a new category of World records, for a limited range of species, but based purely on length. Whilst though I welcome the strategic thinking behind this initiative I suspect it’s fraught with a whole range of side issues, not least of which is the impact of girth on size, and I suspect it’s likely to be ‘binned’.
We’re still left guessing though about fish weights. And I thought I’d include a couple of practical observations about how, if you wish – and it’s entirely up to you, to make this ‘guessing game’ slightly more accurate, especially with larger fish.
So, and this comes from Ian Carter who skippers the game boats Shy 3 (Ascension Island) and Xacara (Faial, in the Azores). And Ian and caught, and weighed a number of ‘grander’ Blue Marlin and fish very close to that weight. In his view the way to determine whether or not you’ve caught a ‘grander’ is to measure the circumference of its tail root. If it’s at least 20” then, in all probability, you’ve caught a ‘grander’. Far from exact I must admit, but nevertheless based on practical observation and reasonable data from a number of different venues. And that might well be a factor in your own mind in determining whether or not you bring in a fish for weighing.
Then there’s the ‘time honoured’ formula for estimating the weights of gamefish species in general – whether large or small. You take the length of the fish - in inches, tip of lower jaw to tail fork – multiply it by the square of its girth measurement (at its greatest point, but excluding fins) and divide the result by 800.
So working through an example, a Marlin with a fork length of say 12’ (144 inches, tail fork to tip of bottom jaw) and a girth of 5’ (60 inches) is likely to weigh 648lbs. A similar fish, but with a 6’ girth though would probably weigh 933lbs.
Try it yourself though. Once, in Ascension Island, our crew calculated the weigh of a 76lb Yellowfin Tuna and then weighed it. The formula, in that particular case, was accurate to within a pound.
Dave
Any rate when I look through our Notable Fish lists, that are recorded on our Club's web site - http://www.scbi.org.uk, I'm aware that by far the majority of weights have been qualified as ‘Released’ or ‘Tag & Release’, and this reflects what is that growing ethos amongst our membership.
Where do these estimates come from though? In the majority of cases they are skippers’ estimates, but obviously, as you’re aware, estimating fish weights is far from being an exact science. And I suspect, as less and less gamefish are killed, the base against which skippers can ‘accurately’ estimate weights will become somewhat vaguer.
Still isn’t that the first question most of us ask when we’ve released a Marlin – just how big did the skipper think it was? Well it’s his best guess but, as I said, nothing more than that an estimate. Realistically it’s just a relative qualification as to whether it was ‘big’ or ‘small’. And one, given that the judgement of the skipper can be likened to that of say a Cricket Umpire, most are prepared to accept, certainly for the award of our Club Trophies. (You'll see I deliberately didn't use 'Football Referee' because just about everyone queries their judgement!)
But, what about our Club Records? Now that’s something, in my view, we’ve quite rightly resisted. Going that route there’re just too many intangibles which will lead to undoubted conflict.
The IGFA - obviously concerned about potentially being characterised as an organisation that ‘promotes’ the needless killing of fish - have recently been considering the possibility of introducing a new category of World records, for a limited range of species, but based purely on length. Whilst though I welcome the strategic thinking behind this initiative I suspect it’s fraught with a whole range of side issues, not least of which is the impact of girth on size, and I suspect it’s likely to be ‘binned’.
We’re still left guessing though about fish weights. And I thought I’d include a couple of practical observations about how, if you wish – and it’s entirely up to you, to make this ‘guessing game’ slightly more accurate, especially with larger fish.
So, and this comes from Ian Carter who skippers the game boats Shy 3 (Ascension Island) and Xacara (Faial, in the Azores). And Ian and caught, and weighed a number of ‘grander’ Blue Marlin and fish very close to that weight. In his view the way to determine whether or not you’ve caught a ‘grander’ is to measure the circumference of its tail root. If it’s at least 20” then, in all probability, you’ve caught a ‘grander’. Far from exact I must admit, but nevertheless based on practical observation and reasonable data from a number of different venues. And that might well be a factor in your own mind in determining whether or not you bring in a fish for weighing.
Then there’s the ‘time honoured’ formula for estimating the weights of gamefish species in general – whether large or small. You take the length of the fish - in inches, tip of lower jaw to tail fork – multiply it by the square of its girth measurement (at its greatest point, but excluding fins) and divide the result by 800.
So working through an example, a Marlin with a fork length of say 12’ (144 inches, tail fork to tip of bottom jaw) and a girth of 5’ (60 inches) is likely to weigh 648lbs. A similar fish, but with a 6’ girth though would probably weigh 933lbs.
Try it yourself though. Once, in Ascension Island, our crew calculated the weigh of a 76lb Yellowfin Tuna and then weighed it. The formula, in that particular case, was accurate to within a pound.
Dave