A addition of a fish eye lens should do it. That is if it's needed LOL.

That would mean you need to learn to bass fish...

Josh,

I don't see anything regarding attractants or dies for the commercial lures. Spike it dip-n-dye for soft plastics also adds a scent or using some other gel on the soft plastics to make the fish hold on longer. Will this be legal or not?

I'm glad you mentioned this. Please do not use fisheye lens on your camera.



As long as it's commercially available it's OK with me.

Josh the case has nothing to do with the lens of the go pro.

Might have to go the bank and photo it.

Does anyone have a photo of a fish on a measuring stick using their GoPro camera that they don't mind posting? I'm worried about distortion on the edges when taking such close pictures.

Oh I'm sure my money will be just as welcome as those that know how to fish!

You mean you have to know how to fish? Dang that puts me at a disadvantage. Ha! Do I have to bring my own fishing gear too?

You know Neumie, just throwing this out there: maybe a thread that shows examples of what you (the judge) deem acceptable (and unacceptable) in terms of the pics wouldn't be a bad idea some time before the tourneys. Having a visual referent for what it is you're looking for might help people out, especially if they haven't done much of this type of thing before.

Here's an example: the top fish was actually pushing 24, but you can see that the measuring stick doesn't really show that. Not sure how that fish would be 'scored'. The second fish was shorter, but a much better pic with clearer measurements visible. Not absolutely perfect though, since the tail is off-center. Someone judging these two fish probably ends up either tossing the first pic or not giving it the correct credit because they have no other choice. It also shows how different measuring sticks stack up to one another.





Question? Would you penalize the fish below for having a 'pinched' or unnatural tail lay? There was actually something wrong with that fish's tail that caused it to lay like that, and try as I may I couldn't fan it out in a more natural position. But I was glad I caught a better fish when in this particular tourney because I myself would have given some kind of deduction or penalty if I had been judging.



This last one's a pretty good one it seems to me.

In my opinion (not that it matters) three of the four are acceptable fish. The first could not count unless you want to make a minimum for any fish caught bc you cant see any numbers on the measuring stick. The second is a clear 20 3/4, the third is 19 1/2 and the fourth is 20 1/2. I think when you enter a CPR tournament you take on the responsability of taking good photos of your fish. This is why its a good idea to practice taking pics while your pre-fishing for the tourney. Just my $.02

So are you just trying to brag? LOL.

#1 I will not score that fish. There are no clear markers nor is there anything for the fish's mouth to touch on the 0" mark.

#2 Looks good to me.

#3 This brings up something I haven't thought about. I don't want to disqualify the fish, but I don't want to award it full length because it could have been pinched prior to the photo. I will think about this some over the next few days.

#4 Looks good to me.


I want to post pics of correctly photographed fish for the tournament but there are some problems;
#1 I suck at bass fishing

and

#2 I've only hit the water 3 time since announcing the tournament, none of which for bass. (mainly trout in the Brazos)

BTW, I enjoy the constructive criticism from this thread and those in the past. keep them coming guys.

Generally,from what I have seen a pinched tail only gains a person about 3/8" I would think that or 1/2" deduction would be reasonable and fair.

Well depending on the fish you can get as much as a half inch by pinching IMO... But 3/8 is about right most of the time... Multiply that over 5 fish and you get two more inches... I can promise you that tourneys have been won/lost with much less than that...

True, a penalty should be assessed that makes you not want to do it.

What about the open mouth on #2 and #3? That adds about 1/2 inch.

I'm OK with that as almost every CPR tournament allows it. No tournaments allow pinching of the tail and call for the fish's tail to "naturally lay".

Josh, what's up with the web site?

TPW measures length for legality by simply closing mouth and pinching tail. AT least that way nothing can be prepped before the pic and everyone gets the same ( if any) advantage.

just sayin

It's a work in progress......


I understand the rules from TPWD, but since we're not keeping fish I want to make the judging easier on myself. I'm just following the footsteps of most of the past CPR tournaments.

Not trying to stir the pot here, but yesterday while Shaun and I were at Crockett, he caught a fish that he didn't think was long enough for the 16 inch minimum in Kayak Wars. I asked him if he had opened the mouth. I know Shaun, like me, has been participating in the challenges at KBF in the last 6-8 months and I figured he was documenting the fish the way they are required on that site: mouth closed. Sure enough, he opened up the mouth and the fish went over the mark (I did the same myself several times, since Kayak Wars deems that acceptable for making the minimum). I ended up taking a before and after of one of the fish I caught and here's the results...

mouth closed - 16.50


mouth open - 17.00


This got me to thinking... OK, opening the mouth gives this fish a half inch 'push'. Is that really such a big deal? I also did it with some smaller fish and noticed that it was a smaller 'push', which makes sense: the smaller the mouth/jaw, the smaller the added 'push' becomes. Of course, the opposite would be true on a bigger fish. So on a 22 inch fish you could be seeing a push of as much as an inch conceivably, though I can't confirm that until I actually do it with a fish of that size (hope I can remember to do that next time I catch one that big, knock on wood)....

I then decided to look at the results of last year's KATS tourney in Austin to see if 1/2 inch over 5 fish (2.5 inches) was the difference between any of the finishers in a given single tourney. I couldn't find results for one specific tourney in a straightforward format, but I did find this results page for all five tourneys and the Angler of the Year thing they have (best total inches over three of the five tourneys). Wow! those were close! There was a tie for second place! So that means that if just one of 15 possible fish used in calculating this DOES NOT have a mouth open pic, then the other guy wins hands down! This is over three tourneys cumulative, not even one! And if one doesn't do it for all 15 possible fish? The difference is 7 1/2 inches. You can look at the KATS RESULTS HERE to see what I mean.

Ok, to the point... NOT TRYING TO MAKE A CASE FOR MOUTH OPEN OR MOUTH CLOSED AS A RULE... Think both have their pros and cons. Actually think mouth open probably makes the most sense, just as long as everyone knows that it is the rule. Sometimes fish just don't want to close their mouths. Getting them to open them, though, is usually pretty easy...

Anyways, enough of my rambling... Just thought it was interesting to see how something as small as this could make such a big difference....

Make perfect since to me. Close mouth would be better. I just need to catch something.

I agree. I think open mouth is easier and if a picture has a closed mouth it should count and not be disqualified but the angler just lost some on the measurement which could made a difference at the end.

mouth closed is my vote

Really? Not when I put a lure in front of them!