Deric what size dowel?

3/8

I have been through most of the issues you can be through with a hawg trough, most points have been addressed, so I'll just repeat what others have said and give my 0.02.

A sticker or sharpie marks will give contrast on the nose board. The measurement intervals will need to be darkened periodically.

I never paid it too much attention, but sure enough mine went overboard while rooting around for my net on a good fish. Had to paddle over to a buddy, borrow his board for the pic, then paddle back to the launch to buy another board from the TD. If necessary, I was prepared to drive an hour to Cabelas and back to keep fishing.

Mouth open or closed depends on the tournament rules, typically more serious tournaments require mouth closed, casual tournaments mouth open is ok. On a good fish that's about 0.5", but in a closed mouth tourney you're penalized an inch for the open mouth. After being burned, I always ask now, and when in doubt, close the mouth. However, in a recent casual tourney, I took a pic both ways and clarified the rule after the fact and recorded the proper score.

I always take multiple photos, at least 2 if not 3. You should have a score card to keep track of which photos are which. You can wait until the end of the tournament and try to sort stuff out later looking through your camera, but I never trust those guys to keep their fish straight and they're usually breaking the rules by [censored] arouind with their score cards after the official tournament ends. Don't be that guy. During a tournament last year I nabbed a 23+" male off a bed and 10 minutes later grabbed the ~25" female, with very little time left to fish, I just said to hell with it and took over a dozen photos of that fish figuring one of them better turn out good (totally forgot to close the mouth though, sucks).

I highly recommend you get a fish gripper to hold the fish after you catch it. I used to toss the bass in the floor of my boat, still hooked in case it flopped, while I got all my gear set up. Now I just put the fish on the gripper and toss it overboard while I get my board and camera ready. It is a risk to unhook the fish for the photo, but some people swear it's needed to keep the fish calm and get it to close it's mouth. I hold the fish gently and haven't had too much trouble with flopping fish.

Given enough time, a fish will knock your camera out of your wet slippery hand. I keep mine on a lanyard around my neck. Also, it is worthwhile to have a waterproof camera, I have been at weigh ins with guys putting their cameras in bags of rice to try to salvage their photos. Also, some tournaments allow phones, many do not, might as well go ahead and get a real waterproof camera so you're ready for whatever.

Most tournaments have a unique identifier required. I've never dealt much with physical identifiers, always codes written on hands. I would recommend you carry your own heavy duty sharpie, it can be a pain getting the code to go onto a wet sweat hand. Also, make sure the code is visible in your photo, some guys made the mistake of leaving their sun gloves on in one tourney I fished.

Not too long ago while leaning forward to grab my fish, I leaned over my board and cracked it (I don't have a gut). The boards are somewhat fragile. After that I went and got the dowels and glued them in the slots on the back side. It floats, is much more rigid, and still fits in my hawg trough holder.

If you are going to compete in the dark, practice taking a photo beforehand and understand how your flash works. I've found that using my headlamp to illuminate the fish in addition to the camera flash works well.

After the first pic, take a quick look at the preview to make sure it's not blurry and that the head and tail are in the shot. Raise the camera higher if it's not all in the shot.

Take the pic with the board and fish across your lap, head facing to the left. One of the biggest controversies I saw this year was a guy with a monster bass, 10+ lbs, with the photo taken on the back of his kayak facing the wrong way, he still won BB, but it pissed a lot of people off that the rules weren't enforced.

Some excellent replies already posted above that don't need to be expounded on, but I wanted to post what I believe to be one of the best replies on this topic by Tom (Gutcheck). This was in response to 'Mulholland' who questioned Tom's mouth open rule for the NTKBF Brazos tourney:

"...the 'mouth open, bottom lip touching, non-pinched tail' policy is the easiest way to get a quick pic of the fish so you can get them back in the water ASAP.. Bigger fish in particular don't always want to cooperate by closing their mouths... a few years ago we had the closed mouth rule and I watched a newbie during the tourney take about 28'pics and almost 3 minutes trying to get a pic of an 18 incher with mouth closed... I don't think he ever succeeded... This open mouth, natural tail lay is also the policy for the KATS series in Austin, which is the largest, longest running and most well-attended kayak bass tournament series in the nation. I figure if it works for them for almost 10 years it can work for us too..."

As stewards of Texas' very finite fishing resources we should all be promoting this tactic and pushing back against any tournaments that don't use this fish measuring criteria. Catch the fish, measure the fish, and get the fish back into the water as quickly as possible--that should be every bass fisherman's goal, unless you don't give a sh!t about your children catching quality fish long after you're gone. This is especially important in a body of water, like the Brazos River, that isn't stocked with bass. Kudos to Tom and NTKBF for dumping conventional 'wisdom' and doing what is right for our very quickly growing sport.

Couldn't agree more to get them back in the water ASAP. I've seen a lot of fish stay out way to long by fishermen that should know better.

LoL