Hmmm this sounds a little fishey to me.....if u take the time to weigh the fish another 2 minutes isn't gonna hurt anything to get measurements

Having weighed a number of water body record fish, this information is off to some degree. There have to be enough photos for the biologists to identify the species, at least one with the angler and one witness to the weighing.

No bash to salsa here.. but No Dominoman, smoky is pretty accurate there ...few pics of the fish to verify the species one with it on its side above or beside a ruler. one witness one angler and one scale... not that complex from the time the fish comes over the side to the end takes about 2-3 mins...

I dont know what the big deal is. Just catching a fish like that is all I need. a quik pic and in the water they go. maybe these people were interested in the care of the fish instead of here look at me. I think it is great fish and think they did the right thing. it was there decision not your. just be happy with the fish.

Hey ssfireman, I know what your saying bud. Probably a really tough position and decision for Salsa. I know I've learned a lot from this thread though and when it comes to deciding if a big fish should be brought in and weighed it can be a quite stressful ordeal in a ton of areas. If you go thru the processes to get a fish certified you know two things right off the bat. 1.). Everybody is gonna find out. And 2.) The fish might become stressed and die. One time I found myself in this same situation. I took my little boy to Benbrook and he caught a nice fish. ( For Benbrook ). It was the first bluecat he ever caught and it would of have been the Benbrook Junior lake record. I decided to just burp the fish and let him go because I didn't want him to die. Boy have I never heard the end of it. Those certificates that you get from Texas Parks and wildlife have a lot of meaning for some people. I wish I would have done this for him now like I did for his older bubba when he caught a shareluker at O.H. Ivie but that was a Sharelunker right? I am really looking into this certified scales on boat thing but I can't say that I love that idea either. It's too hard to get accurate weights on fish while the boat is rocking just like Salsa has said. It's just tough though. So many people are different in this world huh? But anyways a lot of cool things have been brought up in this thread. All good stuff!! . Glad your on this forum bud. You seem like a really good guy. Oh, and here's the video of my 7 yr olds 1st bluecat. http://youtu.be/YPstur7VP7o
And my Stepson's Sharelunker was Sharelunker # 506

Have a good one bud.

I love the video and the huge smile on Auston's face at the end!

Thanks rick. all I was trying to say is that to the person that caught that fish it was appartently not that big of a deal. And that was there decision and that is who it really counts for... fish on

+1

Again. That is a healthy fish.

Plus #1.

Great fish. Great fish. What else can you say

Something's fishy.

I have a certified scale and have weighed a couple of record fish. That have been certified. One thing to remember is the fish has to be weighed on dry land for a weight record. I encourage everyone to familiarize themselves with record requirements and do whatever needs to be done certify a record if they are interested. In this case it seems that Salsa's client didn't care about the record and wanted to get the fish back into the water. Making your customers happy seems like a good business decision to me.

Not true...doesn't have to be weighed on land

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/fishboat/fish/programs/fishrecords/rules/weightrec.phtml