Scale Don’t Lie
My good friend Aaron Rygas has been through a lot and accomplished even more in his forty-something years on earth, so I would’ve respected him even if the events I’m about to describe hadn’t happened – but because they did I respect him even more.
You see, when he pulled a giant bass into the net on Day Two of our recent trip to El Salto, it was immediately obvious that he’d beaten the personal best he’d just set a day earlier.
The big question was: “Would it be a double digit?”
His guide slapped the big crankbait-eater on his Boga Grip and immediately declared it a Bo-Derek-Perfect-10. Guides, however, are not reliable in such situations. Often their tips tend to grow if they meet certain milestones, so they tend to fudge the truth a bit. They might even put a literal thumb on the scale. You can’t really blame them.
Aaron could have agreed with that initial assessment and we all would have believed it. The bass was thick, had a belly, and had big old bug eyes.
To his credit, Aaron wanted to know that his personal best did indeed meet the magic number.
Alas, it did not. After multiple weighings, witnessed intensely not only by his guide but also by our mutual friend Dale Steele, the digital readout settled on 9.79. That’s still a beast. It’s still bigger than 99% of bass anglers will ever achieve. But it’s not a 10. In this case, as far as I’m concerned, it’s better than a 10 because it showed me what kind of person he is – someone who doesn’t want the accolades if there’s any doubt about them.
Ultimately, if your “10 lb. bass” (or your 20 pound peacock, or your 30 inch rainbow or your 50 inch muskie) would not actually meet that mark on a certified measuring device, that’s on you. You have to live with yourself. I will tell you that at least in the bass world, there are exponentially more eights than there are nines, and exponentially more nines than tens. Even on the world’s best bass fisheries, a true double digit is a rare prize. Don’t let anyone get you down because you caught an 8.22, or an 8.99, or a 9.79. Those are incredible fish, and truth be told they’re a lot bigger than most peoples’ “elevens.” I’ve seen lots of pictures of so-called “twelves” that are probably only half that amount. There’s a whole industry, from guides to outfitters to taxidermists, who want to inflate the measurements of your fish.
At one point my friend Steve Yatomi, an outfitter, started having his Amazon guests arrive and depart from Brazil in the middle of the week precisely because of that issue. His guests would have a trip of a lifetime, catching numerous teen-class peacocks up to 19 pounds, and they’d be thrilled, but when they got to the airport they’d run into other anglers and have to listen to tales of mid-twenty-class fish (photo evidence notwithstanding). They’d go home from the trip of a lifetime feeling dejected.
One year we were in the van headed to the Mazatlan airport and one guest reported that he’d caught a “10.56.” I asked him which scale he used and he replied, “Oh, I don’t use a scale. I’ve just caught a lot of tens so I’m good at estimating.” Sorry, dude, you’re the anti-Aaron on the veracity-meter.
It’s easy to get hung up on “magic numbers” and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to attain certain milestones. At the same time, when that gets in the way of having a good time – as well as truthfulness – it undermines the reasons we fish in the first place.
As long as we’re on the topic, over the course of the past several years I’ve been really impressed with the consistent (tested) accuracy of the Brecknell ElectroSamson Scale. I also own a Boga Grip and I’ve heard that Rapala’s digital scales are also first class. If you go to Anglers Inn, they have a certified weight you can use to test yours. If not, head to the refrigerated or frozen foods section of your local supermarket and find out whether your weighing implement is on target.
