Measuring girth

Walleye · **Posted:** Sat Jan 06, 2007 2:11 am

Hi all.
What a year of fishing on Quinte.
Five of us fished this year on two occasions. We all caught our personal best's.
We weighed our fish as opposed to doing the measurements.
All our fish came out of deep water 45' to 55' and I would say that they looked rather rotund as in huge guts like I have never seen before. We tryed from 18' to 55' and the only way we could hookup was running deep.
I am expecting some flak about our depth but I gotta tell the truth.
Every fish we caught was brought up slowly. We unhooked and weighed the fish, ( in a special bag ) and fizzed them right on the spot then put them in the livewell. The fact is that fish caught from 20' and below swell up dramatically due to the air bag. Any measurement taken on these fish is not even close to being representative other than the length. If any of us go back through all the pictures on the site it becomes very clear if the fish was caught shallow or deep. My point being that you cannot take measurements and accurately gauge the weight of the fish if it was caught deep. As I said we fizzed our fish until they were just off the bottom of the livewell and you wouldn't believe the differance in girth.
I hate the truth but I must go on. We killed 2 tens and I felt bad about that but they were badly hooked and bleeding, therefore we knew we were going to eat them. I have never had smoked Walleye before and I must say that these fish were not killed in vain.
Back to my point. The pictures look great, the measurements are astounding but there is only one way to accurately gauge the weight of a fish.
The two tens we killed looked like 13's until we removed the air.
Flame away.
Clark

DanElliot · **Joined:** Mon Apr 08, 2002 8:59 am **Posts:** 4332

Clark,
There was a long discussion on this topic last year. If you do a search on fizzing you will probably find it. Where did you learn how to fizz eyes?

Walleye · **Posted:** Sat Jan 06, 2007 4:58 pm

Hi Dan.
I was involved in that fizzing discussion last year and the year before.
I was taught how to fizz walleye about 10 years ago by a biologist from the University of Manitoba. This man was the weighmaster at a lot of Tourney's in NW Ontario and the Prairies. He developed a tool for fizzing, ( I don't have anymore) and also an additive for the livewell to help the walleye in your livewell revive and also protect them after release. He unfortunately passed suddenly last week but I believe one of his daughter's is as dedicated to the Fish as he was. We were not friends merely acquaintances through Walleye Tourney's. He firmly believed that fizzing, if done correctly and proper handling would allow Walleye to be caught and released successfully, particularly from depth's 20' and below.
I believe that as well.
My point here is not to debate fizzing but rather to point out that these girthy fish are full of air and a length, girth measurement will not even be close to what the scale will read. If you look at some of the photos it is obvious that the fish were caught deep and that the fish looks alot bigger than it really is. Just some thoughts.
Clark
I should point out that Fizzing takes practice and a teacher to be done correctly.

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Measuring girth

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