Greetings everyone! Long time, no post...
I was going through some old fishing photos today when I came upon this picture of my brother with a huge smallie that he caught while we were fishing on Basswood Lake on the MN-Ontario border in late May of 2004:
She was an absolute pig, coming in without much of a fight and just oozing eggs. We took a quick picture and measurements and carefully got her back in the water ASAP -- she swam away after a big splash in my brothers face
Looking back at our guide's notes, we had the measurements at 22" long and 17" girth. We called her "The Football" because of her shape and massive girth. I'm telling you, she was incredibly thick!
After finding the picture and reliving a great memory, I got to thinking -- how much did that baby weigh? We didn't have a scale and obviously weren't going to risk killing the big beautiful momma just to get an accurate weight on certified scales.
I Googled bass weight calculators today and punched in the length and width. A couple of them showed a weight of 8.06 pounds (others were between 7-8 pounds). I then looked up the MN State Record -- 8.00 pounds caught in 1943!
I remember at the time that we estimated the weight to be about 8 pounds. But we didn't give it much thought, because the guide and lodge owner mistakenly thought the state record was 9 pounds. Oops.
Anyhow, I wanted to share the picture and get everyone's thoughts about the fish's dimensions based on the photo. We wouldn't have any reason to fudge the numbers, but we were pretty excited (freaked out, actually) when we got the fish in the boat, so it's possible our measurements or notes of measurements were off...
Let me know what you think. In a sick, older-brother way, I love the idea of my little brother possibly catching a state record fish and receiving no recognition
