This bass came back on July 1, 2013 and tipped the scales at 5-10.

Well, sort of. Somewhere in that neighborhood at least.

You see, at that point in time I had never caught a six-pound bass. I had one over the seven-pound mark and another as close as you can get at 5-15, but the whole six-pound range had eluded me. So, when I saw this one surface as I battled it to the boat I sure thought that it could be the one.

And when I lipped it and pulled it aboard, I was feeling even better about obtaining the mark. A closer look and a highly calibrated sense of guesstimation fine-tuned over close to thirty years of handling bass told my brain that this catch had made the cut.

Then I put it on the scale.

As I released the bass and let gravity do its thing on my battery powered weighing device that is billed as accurate to within an ounce, it went completely haywire. Over six-pounds, under six-pounds, going blank, lighting up and randomly flashing various combinations of pixels that told me absolutely nothing. Frantically, I turned it off and on several times hoping to resolve its electronic funk but all to no avail.

What to do next ran through my head as I shot a few pictures and released the bass to fight again. A true moral and ethical dilemma in a pursuit rife with, well, fish stories. And this was the epitome of the fish story. Flying solo, no one to confirm the weight, the bass could be as big as I wanted it to be even with a photo as they often provide a fair amount of wiggle room. Just look at the eyebrow raising weights on some internet reports or chuckle at fish held to the camera at arm’s length in glossy publications and it’s apparent that fish stories are still alive and well.

Tempting, of course. Honest, not really. The cliché fisherman whispering in my ear said the fish was at least six pounds. My conscience hollered otherwise. While observing the electronic confusion that was the demise of my scale, it was a brief flash of a readout at 5-10 that stuck in my brain.

Two more shots of the catch in the interest of full disclosure and to help you make your own guesstimate

And 5-10 is what went into the log and the fishing report. Still looks like it could be six though, what do you think?

Oh yeah, here’s a 6-2 from 2017 that made the mark, an interesting fish story for another day (got a lifetime of ’em).  Moral of the story when comparing bass though is that I think I sold myself short on the 5-10.  Water under the bridge but still wonder every time I tell this story.

Talk to you later. Troy