I am trying to start a bass club at our church and would like to use the catch, weigh, release format like they used for the classic bracket tour (only best 5 count). I have done a lot of research and have read posts from people saying that it is impractical because not all scales will weigh the same. The scales we would require would be the sales ones used in MLF. Quite a few small clubs around here use the length of the fish to calculate weight instead of actually weighing. My thought is that a good scale that is zeroes prior to each weight would be way more accurate than using the length to calculate weight. Any thoughts? Any other down sides to using the weigh and release? In this club our dues and entry fees would go into a fund and winners would get a trophy and maybe a shirt and the rest would be donated in the winners name to a church charity (send kids to camp etc...).

For a trophy and a shirt, you aren't going to have to worry much about cheaters much. Most of the digital scale nowadays should be accurate enough for that format but a measure format should also work. They aren't competing for a pot just some bragging rights and a good cause.

Check out our methodology for Lake Fork Anglers Bass Fishing Club.
www.bassfin.com. Select Lake Fork Anglers.

TPWD has a paper chart that estimates (usually pretty well) the weight of bass based on length. McKinney uses this chart on slot lakes for our tournaments. We require that each boater have a "Check-It Stick" for measuring. Glee cover the proper technique, but we trust the teams to be honest. We are a draw club, so the partner measures the fish and records it for the one catching the fish.

The TD will tally up the 5 biggest fish by weight on paper and declare the winners.

This is the same as Lake Fork Anglers above, but we specify the ruler so not only are we using the same chart, we are using the same ruler!

FWIW, I was a judge at the Elite series event (Texas Fest) on Rayburn. The scales that they used were the Brecknell Electro Samson scales with an AccuCull on the bottom that clips to the fish's lower lip.

I noticed that these same scales were used during the Classic Bracket.

To help reduce people claiming that the scales aren't all the same (you'll never get rid of all of the complaining), you can weigh a common object before they're all used. If there are still complaints after the day of fishing, do the same thing; weigh a common object on different scales and see how they read.

You can do what we kayak tournament fisherman do an measure your fish on a Hawg trough an take a pic of it on the Hawg trough. Save the pic an use it at weigh in . We dont weigh fish. We total the inchs of five fish to win. Pretty straight forward.

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