Estimated Marlin Weights Help!

[mike hennessy]

Estimated Marlin weight needs to be a focus in tournaments. In a recent marlin tournament I witnessed at least 4 blue marlin hung at the scales not even close to the 300lb minimum weight. 1 fish weighed 220lbs.

I was unlucky enough to grow up in the days of killing all the billfish era in Hawaii. When you kill 100 marlin a year you learn to look at a fish and be able to estimate the weight to as close as 5 lbs on big fish.

I am not bragging about killing 100 marlin a year I look back and hope I am not going to hell for it. A lot of people new to the game have no hope of predicting marlin weights, and should be giving basic guide lines to help them determine if they should kill a fish for weigh in.

I do believe killing a few fish for tournaments or for igfa world records actually helps the species by raising awareness to how special this industry is and drawing in new anglers to start fishing with a forward thinking mind set towards releasing the majority of fish caught of any species.

If a small stick with a pliable measuring tape attached at the proper length for a 300lb fish was giving to each team as part of the briefing ceremony, it might help save a few fish for those teams not sure at what they are looking at. Around 96” seams to be the general consensus for 300lbs. You then need to look at the girth and decide if the fish is skinny from traveling or if its only 94” and very fat, like me.

any thoughts???

[Flyin By]

Try girth X girth X Length devided by 800 = est weight

[reel fool]

Originally Posted by Flyin By

Try girth X girth X Length devided by 800 = est weight

not bashing, but know who you are talking to b4 you post something elementary like this. Mike knows this. been a pro sport boat capt. a LONG time.

as to your question mike, not sure what to say. personally believe in the release of sportfish like billfish, but would never bash someone for killing & eating a legal fish.

guestimating the weight? can hardly do it on billfish. killed 4 bills in my whole life. 3 for tourneys & 1 for a mount. done many release mounts, as I am sure you have, but fish always look smaller in the water to me. I downsize my guess on their size. once on deck, can usually give a pretty good guess on meat fish--tunas, dolphin, kings, etc...but not billfish

I use the weighted measuring stick down the leader method usually. but that is a guestimate too. last bill I killed was 63 lbs on the guestimate chart (White Marlin Open) but was thick thru the tail, so we greased it. ended up 68.5 lbs.

awareness thru killing fish? I agree. would it get the same attention if we released the fish? who knows.

in the end, I think the debate you mentioned about the stick & measuring,etc....is fruitless. my opinion is that the real problem is the overharvesting of billfish & many other species, etc...the same old song. too many fish taken, not enough breeders left....can we really curtail commercial harvest of overharvested species? doubt it.

don't think this directly addressed your thoughts, but this is what came out of my brain as I pondered your point.

[Flyin By]

[quote=reel fool]not bashing, but know who you are talking to b4 you post something elementary like this. Mike knows this. been a pro sport boat capt. a LONG time.

OOOPst, sorry Did not know he da man. I just catch sword fish and marlin and use the basics and its pritty close. last sword was done and came out at 276 using the math and was 270 on a cert scale. Great story though.

[Capt_John]

Originally Posted by Flyin By

Try girth X girth X Length devided by 800 = est weight

I used this equation a lot while I was charter fishing in Hawaii. Worked for me pretty well. Was always close.

[mike hennessy]

it would be quite hard to get a girth measurment of a green 300lb marlin at leader witout gaffing it first, my mission is to quickly measure and release the fish without banging it against the side of the boat for 10 minutes trying to get to many measurements. a basic length to weight ratio for blues/blacks while at leader is what i think the tournament guys should help out with.

thanks for your help though guys good luck fishin mike

[PurpleCedarPlug]

Originally Posted by reel fool

not bashing, but know who you are talking to b4 you post something elementary like this. Mike knows this. been a pro sport boat capt. a LONG time.

as to your question mike, not sure what to say. personally believe in the release of sportfish like billfish, but would never bash someone for killing & eating a legal fish.

guestimating the weight? can hardly do it on billfish. killed 4 bills in my whole life. 3 for tourneys & 1 for a mount. done many release mounts, as I am sure you have, but fish always look smaller in the water to me. I downsize my guess on their size. once on deck, can usually give a pretty good guess on meat fish--tunas, dolphin, kings, etc...but not billfish

I use the weighted measuring stick down the leader method usually. but that is a guestimate too. last bill I killed was 63 lbs on the guestimate chart (White Marlin Open) but was thick thru the tail, so we greased it. ended up 68.5 lbs.

awareness thru killing fish? I agree. would it get the same attention if we released the fish? who knows.

in the end, I think the debate you mentioned about the stick & measuring,etc....is fruitless. my opinion is that the real problem is the overharvesting of billfish & many other species, etc...the same old song. too many fish taken, not enough breeders left....can we really curtail commercial harvest of overharvested species? doubt it.

don't think this directly addressed your thoughts, but this is what came out of my brain as I pondered your point.

Jeff, Quick question, you mentioned the 68.5 White during the WMO. We released one this past yr on the last day that was 68 3/4 inches long and had a girth of 26.5. Chart said @ 63lbs so we let her go. She was also fat all the way to the tail.

Do you remember what your length and girth was on that fish. To this day, I think we made the right decision, but I question the accuracy of the chart?

[reel fool]

Originally Posted by PurpleCedarPlug

Jeff, Quick question, you mentioned the 68.5 White during the WMO. We released one this past yr on the last day that was 68 3/4 inches long and had a girth of 26.5. Chart said @ 63lbs so we let her go. She was also fat all the way to the tail.

Do you remember what your length and girth was on that fish. To this day, I think we made the right decision, but I question the accuracy of the chart?

I think you made the right decision. as I recall, our fish was 4th when weighed & finished 5th (I think). out of the $. Our fish was about 63 lbs on the chart (to the best of my memory), but weighed about 5 lbs more. I seriously doubt that your fish would have beaten the 3rd place, 80 lb white. I can't recall the measurements on the fish. I have to admit, that after greasing the fish, I immediately began to doubt our (my) decision. I was hoping that it made the 65 lb minimum so that we did not get boooed off the dock. It was a great moment for the boat & crew.

[Squidnation]

Jeff, are u still in New mexico? How is the billfishing their Seriously, where are you hanging your hat these days.

[Parapapam]

Anyone want to take a guess? This one is the first I've been involved with and we let it go. So we don't really know how much it weighed... But I am curious what the experts think.

Mike