How to Weigh-In in the Water

Written by Brett Fitzgerald | 25 August 2009

Taking the measure of your catch

without removing the fish from the water.

First, measure the fish while still in the water from the jaw to pinched tip of the tail. Release immediately if not a keeper. Photo credit: Peter Hinck

I think it was Outdoor Life writer Patrick Mcmanus who referred to the bizarre natural force that pushes anglers’ hands apart when they are describing the fish that got away. And anyone that has ever photographed a fish understands how important it is to hold the fish as close to the camera as possible – of course just to make sure the proper perspective is captured.

But whether you are planning to keep a slot snook (click here for slot/regs), or release your catch it's good to know the true length and weight of the larger fish you reel in.

Snook researchers have extensively studied the relationship between length and weight of snook, making it easy to use a table of measurements such as the one below to determine a fish's weight. Using the measured length of the fish, from lower jaw to pinched tip of the tail, the guide will show the expected weight of your snook at different times of year.

This eliminates the need to take multiple measurements and apply some kind of formula (which doesn’t necessarily work for snook), thus decreasing the amount of handling.

The tricky part is you have to consider your location and time of year to hone in on better accuracy. East coast fish weigh out differently than west coast fish, and the spawning season has a significant effect on the average weight of a snook.

There is a real application for this kind of data. If you would like to contribute your data to fishery research, use MyFish.com to log in your catch.

You can also use the table to keep yourself and your friends honest, without lifting the fish from the water. A good friend and great snook angler Peter Hinck called to tell me he caught a 39-inch snook, near Munyun Island in Palm Beach County. This was the last day of snook season, May 31.

Armed with the information of where, when, and how long the fish is, I can tell Peter with confidence that his fish probably weighed a little better than 20.5 pounds. So?

So, Peter now knows how much his fish weighed, and he never had to lift that momma from the water. He used a “law stick” to measure the length while the fish was still in the water, then removed his barbless hook and sent the overslot female on her way.

I don’t need to give you a bunch of fancy science to make you understand that Peter’s fish has a much better chance of surviving than a fish that is heaved into a boat, weighed by its lower lip, passed around a boat for photos and tossed to a waiting porpoise. Not that we all follow that protocol, but there is always room to be a better angler, and releasing your fish as “cleanly” as possible is an important part of responsible snook angling.