Bass Fishing Forum - Westernbass.com

During the live weigh in I noticed that Skeet waited to bag his fish and pulled out a dry weigh bag from his dry storage compartment.All the other guys had their fish bagged and ready to go onto the scales.
MY QUESTION IS:DID THE DRY BAG KEEP SKEET FROM WINNING ?

good an oz of water is not all that much

it may not have kept him from winning, but i certainly think it cost him an ounce and a tiebreaker with Crews.

If that is a fact, I am sure it cost him 3 or 4 oz. The water retained a little longer in the fish would have weighed that much.

My bet is he will NEVER weigh in using a dry bag again.

I think John Crews catching a 5 lb'er on his last cast was more of factor. Congrats John and to Skeet for a strong finish.

Dan Barker

I seriously doubt it cost him anything....Tripp drains them all the same. What if all of them had more water in their bag than 32nd place???? Congrats to Crews, he had a solid win....And a dry bag had nothing to do with it..

1 oz. of water weighs about 1 oz. Think of 1 shotglass retained by 5 fish and or bag. Makes you want to keep those fish soaked as long as possible.

Don't know about the whole dry bag thing. But I think Reese's reasoning for bagging his fish the way he did was to put on a show for the home crowd. Skeet has always been about the "show" more than just going up there and handing Trip a bag of fish. Wouldn't expect any less from him.

This is why I like the weigh and release way of doing it. Only downfall is having an official in every boat!

Wow I didn't watch but are you saying he took his fish up with no water in the bag at all ' That doesn't make sense I thought the Fish and Game and Bass required to have your fish in water

Steve1257 wrote:1 oz. of water weighs about 1 oz.

Thanks for clarifying that bro.

bigbass111 wrote:I seriously doubt it cost him anything....Tripp drains them all the same. What if all of them had more water in their bag than 32nd place???? Congrats to Crews, he had a solid win....And a dry bag had nothing to do with it..

Could be. But I bet if Skeet could do it over he would make sure he had a wet bag. There is no way of knowing how close the scale was to clicking over to the next ounce. Maybe a half ounce would have done it. That was a $75,000.00 ounce.

This is a good question, with his fish swimming around the box less stressed, soaking in water vs. fish all ready sacked and stacked on each other all stressed out with very very little water vs. a weigh-in bag that's been soaking in a live-well. I suppose the bag could retain and/or have some residual water within it. Makes sense, those bags probably could hold easily 1,2 or even 6-shot glasses full. I have several weigh--in bags hagging in the garage and their noticeably lighter; like day and night. Hey maybe the new thing is to soak your bags in stained muddy water a week before the tournament . I could use all the help I can, but I would have to figure a way to make my bags weigh about 5 or 6lbs more to get in the money.

hmm........
i didnt see any water draining from any of the fish or bags taken to the scales. it sure didnt look like there was water anywhere in those livewells.

i watched the hour long video on the website, and to me, it looked like all the contestants had dry bags; even those sitting in the livewell, already bagged.

I know we used the mesh bags at the A/C ProAm and even with those, when you pulled that bag out of the livewell with water in it, there was water everywhere as you lifted it out.

this didnt happen at the Delta weigh-in. go watch the video and see if you notice any water coming off those bags they pull out of the livewell. they appeared dry to me.

seemed strange.

Kopper

Why are the Elite guys allowed to "dry weigh" their catch?
DFG has let it be known that you may be cited and your org. may lose it`s permits for tournaments if you are obsreved by them doing this.
Can anyone shed any light on this?

Actually Guyle,A volume of 1 fluid ounce of water = a dry weight of 1.043 ounce

I don't know Kopper

I watched the live weigh-in as well, and most of the Elite guys were rolling their sleeves up, drying their hands off up at the scales, plus you could here the pumps running on the boats as they pulled the sack out, that's what I saw.
Viewing the weigh-in online, it would be pretty hard to tell how much water is dripping off the bags.
I'm sure the Elite Series weigh master is aware of water in the bags, on the bags, on the scales, that’s his job and I believe he's consistent. I bet that guy has weighed so many fish he knows the weight of the fish before it hits the scale.

Steve1257 wrote:Actually Guyle,A volume of 1 fluid ounce of water = a dry weight of 1.043 ounce

Do you like repeating yourself? We got it the first time "about 1 oz"

Actually, the significant point is that a fluid ounce of water weighs very nearly one ounce... water is one of the only fluids for which that is true. Subtle little detail, but interesting.

Roger

Bassmaster uses a mesh bag when they are doing their weigh-ins to reduce handling of the fish.

The fish are placed in a bag that is perforated with thousands of holes to allow for water flow through in a live well.

They are not "dry weighing" their fish, the fish have plenty of water flowing through with the re-circ pumps in the livewell.

The mesh bag is part of a two part system made by Gator Grip, the same system that Anglers Choice now uses in their large field events, such as Pro-Ams and TOC's in Region 1.

Bass Tackle Depot carries these bags, they are very safe for the fish, easier for the tournament orgs to transposrt throiugh scales and bump tanks, and no heavy lifting for the anglers.

DanO

if it did make a difference its nothing but skeets fault..this is not his rookie year so you would think he would know better..only one thing to do- catch more fish!

More importantly than whether or not this cost Skeet the event is what the potentinal impact this may have outside of bass fishing community.

Item #5 of the "Special conditions for contests conducted under annual or event permits" last issued by the Dept of Fish & Game on June 2008, states

"Bass shall be held at all times with sufficient water to cover the fish, except during the actual measuring/weighing process. Fish shall be held in plastic bags no longer than 3 minutes prior to or after the weigh in unless the water in the bag has been replentished".

Item #3 from the same pamphlet says, "Department employees may terminate a contest if, in his/her opinion, any permit condition has been violated or a substantial impact to the resource by the contest is observed or expected".

Am I stating that DFG should have pulled the permit or cancelled the event - absolutely not. I think every single event out there has some peccadilloes involved with weigh ins and fish handling. It is however our responsibility to make sure that the anglers know what the laws are and how to care for thier catch during the tournament.

While I have no idea if having a dry bag going to weigh in was intentional or an oversight, it is imperative for BASS and every other organization to let thier guys know how to handle the fish. It is no secret that the anti-hunting/fishing crowd looks for things like this as a reason to shut us down and when the highest level of our sport is not in compliance, it only hurts us all.

I sincerely hope that BASS will speak with thier anglers prior to Clear lake to make sure that they will all handle thier fish properly and comply with California DFG regs.

MartinD wrote:During the live weigh in I noticed that Skeet waited to bag his fish and pulled out a dry weigh bag from his dry storage compartment.All the other guys had their fish bagged and ready to go onto the scales.
MY QUESTION IS:DID THE DRY BAG KEEP SKEET FROM WINNING ?

I guess I'm confused about the intent of the original post. Does BASS measure the weight of the fish while it's still in the bag (i.e., the weight of the fish and the bag)? If not, why would it make a difference if the bag was wet or dry?

YES,
BASS as well as 99% of all other tourney trails measure the weight of the fish all in a bag, so the bag has to be considered. all scales have a "tear" function that allows them to weigh a bag first and subtract that amount from weight before a fish is weighed. so essentially, the scale reads -2 oz or something like that with nothing on it. then they weigh the fish with a bag and its supposed to then be equal. I am sure that they did a pre-weigh of the bag with it wet, since all the bags would be wet coming to the scales.

The Question is if Skeet made a mistake by using a bag that was not in the water, because surely any bag can cling onto or absorb 1oz of water. If he used a dry bag and the tear weight was calculated using a wet bag then they essentially subtracted a few extra ounces from his true weight.

Kopper

Yeah,
i seriously doubt they were all dry, but it just didnt look right either. when we used those mesh bags at the A/C proam, if you had them in the livewell with a full tank of water, when you pulled them out, there was water everywhere as it drained. i didnt see any bags draining as they were pulled out of the livewells.

i do know that skeet and a few others reached into their livewells and grabbed fish, which were obvioulsy in water, as they struggled to get a hold of them. i was just questioning if the guys who pulled up with their fish allready bagged had water in there or not.

i know a few of the guys handled the fish, so grabbing the towel is common to get the fish slime off their hands.

Kopper

Bill Hutcheson wrote:More importantly than whether or not this cost Skeet the event is what the potentinal impact this may have outside of bass fishing community.

Item #5 of the "Special conditions for contests conducted under annual or event permits" last issued by the Dept of Fish & Game on June 2008, states

"Bass shall be held at all times with sufficient water to cover the fish, except during the actual measuring/weighing process. Fish shall be held in plastic bags no longer than 3 minutes prior to or after the weigh in unless the water in the bag has been replentished".

Item #3 from the same pamphlet says, "Department employees may terminate a contest if, in his/her opinion, any permit condition has been violated or a substantial impact to the resource by the contest is observed or expected".

Am I stating that DFG should have pulled the permit or cancelled the event - absolutely not. I think every single event out there has some peccadilloes involved with weigh ins and fish handling. It is however our responsibility to make sure that the anglers know what the laws are and how to care for thier catch during the tournament.

While I have no idea if having a dry bag going to weigh in was intentional or an oversight, it is imperative for BASS and every other organization to let thier guys know how to handle the fish. It is no secret that the anti-hunting/fishing crowd looks for things like this as a reason to shut us down and when the highest level of our sport is not in compliance, it only hurts us all.

I sincerely hope that BASS will speak with thier anglers prior to Clear lake to make sure that they will all handle thier fish properly and comply with California DFG regs.

This is by far the best reply to this thread; mesh bags do not meet CA's DFG regulations. It's similar to the snagged fish regulation; hook must be inside the mouth.
Skeet could have been DQ' d for violating DFG regulations.
There are a lot of environmental zelots that want organized fishing tournaments elinimated in CA. TD's better become well educated in CA DFG reluations.
Well intended acts of conservation that don't meet the current regulations, are agianst the law unitl those regulations are changed.
Tom

You know... Skeet has been doing this long enough to know how things work. If he cost himself the win so he could put on a show, it's his own fault. Sorry, but that's just how it is.

listen..... lets not blow this question out of proportion....did it cost skeet the tournament by not having a wet bag? ...son of a gun...bill and old school are looking way to much into this simple question...i mean do you really think bassmaster doesn't know what is right or wrong. every pro in the top 12 would of called skeet on it if what he did was against the rules that would of put then one place higher...i bet this question wasn't put on here to get any organization in trouble damm, who in cali didn't want to see skeet win on the delta ... so plz stop with all the damm DFG rules...and just answer the damm question plzs with a small opinion....

Oldschool wrote:It's similar to the snagged fish regulation; hook must be inside the mouth.

Speaking of which, and hate to start up the crap again, but did anyone else catch James Niggemeyer own up to the fact that he released several fish on the first day because they weren't hooked 'in the mouth'? Again, not bedding fish but just general fish as per DFG rules? Really refreshing to see a Professional act as such in spite of the cheese on the line.

Roger

And before anyone really gets their panties in a bunch... I believe we really need to work with the Fish and Game Commission to get that rule reworked!

Roger

I don't tournament fish so none of this makes any difference to me personally. IF I was a tournament fisherman, then you would see me working to make the needed changes to the DFG regulations.
Peace, Tom