Quinte Fishing

Just to report on my incredible fishing experience on Sat. Launched at Deseronto at around 9:00, couple of other boats were there too. Water was clear all the way past the cement plant. Caught on eye at Shermans at around 10:30, not much until mid afternoon when we went to Huffs. The water and wind calmed down and the fish was hitting like crazy. Caugh 5 eyes within couple of hours, biggest one was a 33" weighing in at 18lbs. (released it after taking some pics, So, go get it, its still out there.) All others where around 11-13 lbs. Wow, what a day and what a way to cap off this soft water fishing season. Thanks everyone for the water condition update. We were jigging with minnows.

Grizz

Wow 18 lbs...Nice fish.

Guess you never know when the open water season will be down. Can't wait for the pics.

Congrads.

Mike

_________________
Wish I wasn't here...Rather be fishing if you know what I mean

Deseronto has always had the really large Walleye.

No surprised that you had a lot of success in that area.

I was hoping it would freeze soon.

Fisherman

Ok Guys, I know some will question the actual size of this fish. I weighted it with the scale shown in the picture. That scale shows weight in increments of 2 lbs. So, when I weight it, it was barely touching the 18lbs mark, way above the 16 lb mark, but again barely touching the 18 lb mark (still touching). Not really sure the acuracy of that scale, I have a smaller scale which I use to weight fish (the one with the tape measure and scale in one), when I use to compare the smaller one with the one I'm using in the picture, they were pretty close. I couldn't weight that fish with the smaller one because the fish was too big and the hook on the scale couldn't hold this fish. I took measurements, it was 33.5" without pinching the tail. (didn't want to keep the fish out of water too long, plus it was jumping like mad.) The girth was about 19" where I took the measurement, which I thought was the thickest part, but again it was a rough measurement so that I can put it back ASAP. When I released the fish it was in really good shape, since I caught it in 30' of water, I'm pretty sure it should be fine. Check out how calm the water was... I too am waiting for the ice, just built a hut and dying to put in on the ice.
Ps. I'm interested in how big you guys think this fish was????

Grizz

Almost forgot, I would like to thank superdad for the travelling to BOQ and constantly updating us on water/ice conditions.

Grizz

Funny thing about fishing......

There is an exponential increase in difficulty to catching progressively larger fish.

These days, twelve-pounders are "ordinary" with perhaps a hundred caught [and hopefully released, unless you like consuming contaminants] in Quinte this fall. Fifteen-pounders are showing up with great regularity this year, too, though a few years ago they were hard to come by.

No doubt about it, though - eighteen-pounders are amazingly rare, and a True Trophy.

Now, not to rain on your parade, mate, cuz it's a beautiful fish, but you might need to calibrate your scale! This can you do against a known weight in this range - try some bags of sugar, or some barbells from the Weight Room. In fact, you might consider trying some dumbbells.....

Don't assume digital scales are any more accurate than spring scales - they may be more precise, but there IS a difference. Digital scales should be calibrated, too.

At any rate, here is a fifteen-and-a-quarter pounder weighed on a calibrated spring scale, so you can compare the photos. I am 90% confident that this fish is no less than 15 lbs, and no more than 15.5 lbs. Note that photos can be deceiving! Fishermen also tend to lie a lot! This could just be a "sour grapes" post of jealousy from a guy whose biggest fish he was certain he's caught was 13 1/4 pounds, though he might have released larger in the heat of the moment!



Now, my dad is only 5' 6", so his smaller hands make the fish look a bit bigger than perhaps if some Lard-Ass in a Mustang [or Buoy-O-Buoy] Suit were to hold it. However you can tell by the angle of his arms that the fish is tight against his body. It would look bigger if you held it closer to the camera according to the inverse-square rule. So compare the hand size, the head size, and the shoulders size of my dad. On the fish, look at the dorsal fin, and especially the big gut hanging down!

Interestingly, a few years ago, the World Record Musky was stripped from its previous holder, and awarded to Ken O'Brien who caught a verified 65-pounder out of Blackstone Harbour in the Moon River Basin in 1975 I believe. A "Deathbed Confession" from a friend of the purported World Record Holder, and witness to the alleged catch, said that they lied. Their 69.9 lb musky from the St. Lawrence River in the 60's was not really that big! "Fish Photo Experts" used similar techniques described above to determine that not only was the fish not 70 pounds, but probably "just" in the low 50's.

There are two ways you can find out how much your fish really weighed:

1. Has anyone here ever caught and weighed a 33.5" x 19" fish? If so, how much did it weigh?

2. Go calibrate your scale, and tell us what you find!

Still, helluva fish, dude. And congrats, eh?

Looks like a 12 to 14 lber to me.
If the measurements are accurate
I would say a 14 lber is more likely.

Can't wait for the ice.

BATMAN

Concur. I was guessing around 12 or 13. Hard to say, though.....

Calibrate yer scale, mate!

Hi grizz,

from the picture hard to tell that it's a 33 1/2 incher. But looking at the scale your using and the measurements, I would guess that it's closer to 15 lbs. Those spring scales are absolute garbage. I took some cast iron weights and hung them on a dial indicator spring scale and found the weights to be off by about 1 - 1.5 pounds per 5 lbs. I use a Berkley digital that has a calibration feature and the 5 and 10 lb weights were within an ounce or two of their stated weight. Definitely a beautiful fish. The other things that could distort my view of how big the fish is, is how big of a guy you are as well as all the winter clothing you're wearing could make the fish look smaller than it actually is. Also, you're holding the fish very close to your body (I'm very guilty of this as well) In any case, a 33 1/2 incher is a huge eye by anyones standards. Just my 2 cents from very limited experience. Congrats on a great day.

Ken

Ok, Thought I would get some responses when I posted the pics. I bought the scale from Moon's in Nov. To tell you the truth, the fish looked much bigger in real life than in that pic. But I guess the measurments (size) can't lie as much as the spring scale, cause I never calibrated the spring scale. According to my other scale, we were catching fish around 12lb range in Nov. but this one was much much bigger, actually the biggest one by far we've ever caught. Looking at that pic, it is hard to believe that it was close to 18lber but I'm 70%+ sure its bigger than 14lbs. We knew it was a monster because it did not fit in the net side ways, had to net it from the head to get it into the net.

What can I say, look at the smile on my face!!!

Thanks and appreciate all the feed back. If anyone catches one with those measurements, let me know how heavy it was. Its too bad I may never know how heavy that fish really was. Before fishing the BOQ this fall, the biggest walleye I caught was a 26" in Lacs des Mille Lacs in NW Ontario. I never thought Walleye got much bigger than that, boy was I wrong. Any ways, up in NW ON, when we fished for eyes, we would always catch tones of Northens, there is a rock where I fished from, I could catch 5-10 30"+ pikes in a hour. About 5:1 ratio of Pikes to eyes.

I hear there's monster pikes in BOQ too, haven't caught any yet

Grizz

This is exactly what I mean by calibrating your scale!

Spring scales are extremely accurate, and have been since they were invented. It's just simple physics, and the way springs work. There is a near straight-line relationship between force and distance. When you write that a spring scale is off by a certain amount per weight, that is exactly the way spring scales work.

So what you might find is this:

Your spring scale reads 5.5 pounds when a 5-pound barbell hangs from it.
Your spring scale reads 11 pounds when a 10-pound barbell hangs from it.
And your spring scale reads 16.5 pounds when you hang a measured 15 pounds from it.

Now, your scale does not read correctly, but once calibrated, it is extremely accurate.

Grizz, you can do this easily, assuming you have something around fifteen pounds that you know weighs fifteen pounds. Find something, and go to the butcher's shop, and ask him to stick it on his meat scale for you. Then weigh it at home, and make the calculations.

It ain't rocket science, nor is it calculus.

It's just a straight-line relation.

Yea PTPP,

I guess I can just weight something on that scale that will give me aprox the same reading. I don't know rocket science, but I do know Calculus. But calculus is no where near as exciting.

Grizz

Grizz,

Exactly how did you measure the length of your fish? Are you measuring from the tip of the nose to the tip of the tail, or from the tip of the nose to the fork of the tail? An incorrect measurement can give you a misleading length.


Captain Hank

Hey, regardless of actual weight, your walleye was a trophy. It's so hard to know how these weight measures play out without the calibration others have suggested. Cold plays a factor with digital scales as well. With respect to the approx weight of the above fish by measurment of length and girth, if the fish was 33.5 X 19, the fish would weigh 15 - 16 pounds. There was a posting a couple weeks ago from a chap who caught one that was 33 X 22 and once they got his on a certified scale, the fish weighed 16 1/2 lbs. He originally thought his weighed 18 as well (can't remember what type of scale). This is definitely in the ballpark. My personal experience is one can't trust those spring loaded scales. Saturday was certainly a banner day of fishing for those who ventured out. Well done!