Veddddddy intershting, the odds.
We've brought a bunch of fish into our boats over the years, but nowhere near 1500 ten-pound-plus-ers. However I would be willing to bet it has been a few hundred of that size. If we've managed to bring in two that were over fifteen, I'd say we've defied the odds a bit, then.
Mike told me how he calibrated his scale, and while his scale reads a bit high in the 15-lb range, it was less than half a pound. So a 16.6 on his scale would safely be over 16 pounds, assuming his scale reads in tenths of a pound rather than pounds and ounces.
All I'm saying here is this - if you catch a really big fish, you ought to do some stuff:
You should take many photos. Fer cryin' out loud - the Fish Of A Lifetime, or at least Of The Season, deserves more than one shot, eh? I probably took half a dozen photos of my dad's fish, and I took even more of his 4 1/4 pound speckled trout this spring in Algonquin. The result is what you see - at least one really brilliant photo!
Put a ruler next to the fish and touching it.
Take a picture of the scale so nobody can say you misread it.
Measure and record the length, and the freakin' GIRTH, dammit! We forgot to measure the girth on my dad's fish, I think.
If you're a big guy, give it to someone smaller than you to hold it!
It is a fundamental premiss of Dr. Piton that "if you are bitchin', then you will have detractors." The same can be said if you catch a bitchin' fish, as this one clearly is.
How bitchin' it is may remain a mystery to some, because unfortunately the photo ain't very proud at all. {shrug}
What is very amusing about Targa2's post is his claim to have lost 3 fish bigger than 15. It is possible we have done this, too. I wonder why this is? Why is it harder to bring in a bigger fish? It shouldn't be, should it? One year I had a fish pulling super-hard on some old abraded Fireline on my jigging rod, and he broke off. I never saw the fish, unfortunately, but judging from its fight, it was HUGE. Sometimes those big bruisers have the extra weight to shake the lure loose at the boat. And perhaps other times, you just get too excited and blow it! [I would like to think I would no longer do this EVER, but .... well .... you know ......]
And herein lies the stuff of legend. If you caught 'em all, they wouldn't call it fishin', would they?
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,I believe you got a dandy there.I skunked out on that saturday but I did see you fella's out there.I'll be back for another go this coming week. 
roughrider
