How much does this fish weigh?! A quick guide to guessing.

mikep said:
I agree Bryce, the peanut gallery in the guide shack would rip guides a new one stretching the weight to 30#. We never did that. 29.5 is still not a tyee. In the first half of my guiding career I hung a lot of tyees on the scale at the dock, fish up to around 50# are darn close to the formula weight when divided by 800. Actually found that the formula was a tad conservative compared to the scale. I am not totally sold on the 750 divider as there seems to be more discrepancy. As for big tips for big fish, not always the case. More like big tips for big fun at all the places I worked. Some of my biggest guided fish resulted in well below average tips.....all depends on what the guest values I guess....
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Totally agree. Never saw a fish fudged to 30 from 29.5. Saw a lodge manager try once for some bigwig who wanted the pin, but was immediately shut down by the guides. It goes against the code and everything we stood for.
Personally I no longer care how much they weigh, feels like those days are over as the pride in killing a Tyee is somewhat diminished with the state of the stocks.
I’ve also noticed that eye balling a fish for weight is a perishable skill. When I saw them everyday I could guess within a pound or two every time. Last time up in the charlottes after a long spell away my weight eye was way off haha
 
Rain City said:
Pulled this off the internets. Not a bad, quick guess, way to brag about your fish.

My name is Jon and I catch A LOT of 7 lb Chinook...

"While it might have made more sense to use the median weight for these formulas, fishery biologists decided to go with the 75th percentile so that the standard weight at a given length was an above-average or "ideal" target to shoot for in terms of body condition. So, if your fish appears plump and healthy, the weights from the table should be relatively close. If your fish is skinny to average, it will weigh less, and if very plump and remarkably "fat" it will weigh more. Just make an adjustment."

Chinook Salmon Weight Conversion Chart

25 in 6.49 lb
26 in 7.28 lb
27 in 8.12 lb
28 in 9.02 lb
29 in 9.99 lb
30 in 11.02 lb
31 in 12.12 lb
32 in 13.29 lb
33 in 14.53 lb
34 in 15.84 lb
35 in 17.23 lb
36 in 18.70 lb
37 in 20.25 lb
38 in 21.88 lb
39 in 23.59 lb
40 in 25.38 lb
41 in 27.27 lb
42 in 29.24 lb
43 in 31.31 lb
44 in 33.47 lb
45 in 35.72 lb
46 in 38.08 lb
47 in 40.53 lb
48 in 43.08 lb
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That is not accurate. I have had a 28lbs at just under 36" and a 30lbs at 36".
 
mikep said:
I agree Bryce, the peanut gallery in the guide shack would rip guides a new one stretching the weight to 30#. We never did that. 29.5 is still not a tyee. In the first half of my guiding career I hung a lot of tyees on the scale at the dock, fish up to around 50# are darn close to the formula weight when divided by 800. Actually found that the formula was a tad conservative compared to the scale. I am not totally sold on the 750 divider as there seems to be more discrepancy. As for big tips for big fish, not always the case. More like big tips for big fun at all the places I worked. Some of my biggest guided fish resulted in well below average tips.....all depends on what the guest values I guess....
Click to expand...
This....^^^I have heard of using the 750 as a better representation of weight once you crest a particular size.
 
Tugcapitan said:
Totally agree. Never saw a fish fudged to 30 from 29.5. Saw a lodge manager try once for some bigwig who wanted the pin, but was immediately shut down by the guides. It goes against the code and everything we stood for.
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YES as we used to give a pin which had lodge name on and were expensive we had for over 30,40,50 and they got a coat badge and a bottle of champagne. so it had to be tipping before we gave them away . funny thing though when you fish alot of different places what "looks" to be big as its long turns out to be way below,
VERY early in my career i called one a tyee got it back put it on the scale oooopppsss was only like 27 lbs I NEVER made that mistake again as i got it good from other guides and so I should have... LOL so every fish EVEN if I knew it was over was oh high 20s LOL
 
Baxter said:
Nothing a 3# cannonball down its throat won't solve. ;)
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FUNNY you say that ...I have a group that comes fishing with me and one day we decided a lil derby...young guns vs old guys so chatting with other guide he said the fish he had was same 23 ish (close to what we had)so we as the old guys wanted whip the youngsters into shape we crammed 3- 2 lb weights down the fishs throat . LOL
remember the kids even saying boy look at the gut on that thing sure is a FATTY....so when we guttted the kid goes WOW look at that I didnt think fish ate weights !!!! well lets say we had a great laugh the rest of the day...they still bring that up..all about having FUN
 
wolf said:
FUNNY you say that ...I have a group that comes fishing with me and one day we decided a lil derby...young guns vs old guys so chatting with other guide he said the fish he had was same 23 ish (close to what we had)so we as the old guys wanted whip the youngsters into shape we crammed 3- 2 lb weights down the fishs throat . LOL
remember the kids even saying boy look at the gut on that thing sure is a FATTY....so when we guttted the kid goes WOW look at that I didnt think fish ate weights !!!! well lets say we had a great laugh the rest of the day...they still bring that up..all about having FUN
Click to expand...
a few scoops of salt ice jammed down the throat with the butt end of a gaff works great too, time to fillet it usually all melted , all in good fun
 
25 in 6.49 lb
26 in 7.28 lb
27 in 8.12 lb
28 in 9.02 lb
29 in 9.99 lb
30 in 11.02 lb
31 in 12.12 lb
32 in 13.29 lb
33 in 14.53 lb
34 in 15.84 lb
35 in 17.23 lb
Click to expand...

These may be good for a rough guess some times, but certainly not always close.

On the weekend caught a 76cm (30") Chinook. It weighed exactly 16 lbs.
But based on that chart, it would have weighed 11.02 lbs. The chart was off by 5lbs based on this. And it wasn't a particularly fat fish either.

Also caught a 65 cm (25.5") Chinook. It weighed exactly 7 lbs. This falls in almost perfectly with the chart.

Perhaps the bigger the fish, the higher the margin for error.
 
800, 775, 750, 740 formulas

750 formula below
 

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