weighing fish or laying them on paper can hurt the fish. are there any tournament trails where you just get to guess the weight of your fish and throw it back and keep track of your best 5 based on your guestimaate? sorry to go off topic...just wondering

In this case I would take the paper weight and call it good!!

Huh? You'd take a paper weight you knew to be inaccurate over the weight measured on the scales?

You see the little Winkie Face emoji after my comment?? It was a joke Mahfouz. Take a pill.

^^^^This
Here's a formula for calculating the weight of a LMB using length and girth:
length times girth squared divided by 1050. Or expressed another way, length x (girth x girth)/1050

I want to enter this tournament, but I want to weigh in last.

fished squaw 2 years ago and there as a weigh in tournament your best 5 and our club had a paper tournament. I entered both. In the paper side of the tournament we had 26 lbs and on the weigh in side we had 21 lbs. We won both that day.

Just an observation by being on the TFF for a while, the average weight of a TFF-six footer also varies considerably from a nonTFF 6 footer.

I fished a tournament on Welsh with its 18" minimum. Anything under 18" was "weighed" on the paper chart but any fish 18" or longer were brought to the scales and weighed. I caught two over 18" and got their actual weight from the scales. Guys who caught 17.25" fish and used the chart had fish that "weighed" more than mine.

That reason, among others, is why I like to fish tournaments on 14" minimum lakes and bring the fish to the scales. You don't have to wonder whose fish may have been skinnier or fatter than yours, and you don't get beat by guys who caught five 13 inch fish when you weren't able to weigh five slot fish that would have gone over 26 pounds.

Here's one to add to this topic.

it was 25 inches long but we did not weigh the fish.

Otis