I found this video the other day and I thought it was a very interesting and thought provoking video about weighing fish in a tournament using a Bubba scale. What if anglers could pick up an extra couple of tenths or hundredths of a pound by dropping your fish after you’ve hooked it to the digital hanging scale? It could be possible. That’s quite a “tactical advantage“ and a few hundredths of a pound or an ounce here or there could move you up the leaderboard quite a bit and maybe be worth quite a bit of money too.
Adding a little weight to your big catch?
As you can see from the video, he brings up an interesting point and examples using his Bubba scale in a catch and release fishing tournament. This is one reason why I’ve always been a little hesitant to set up our fishing tournament weigh-in scales with a hold function. Some clubs or tourneys love the filtering and the hold function and others don’t like it. It could be for various reasons like windy conditions or more active fish that don’t settle down as quickly.
There could be several fixes for this situation. Ideally the scale would automatically not include any big outliers but I’m not sure that is the case. You could just weigh the fish with no averaging and no hold function. Maybe adjust the filtering a bit and you could probably make it work. Or, you could establish a standard way to weigh and connect the fish to the scale so this type of thing is virtually eliminated.
I think the scale has a level bubble so that should help to keep the scale in the right position. However, how high you hold the scale and how you let the fish be connected and dropped is the real key. If your scale guy holds the scale on the lower side and you connect your fish at a comfortable waist high level, there will be a natural drop when you release the fish.
Gaining an Advantage?
Is this acceptable or not for anglers to try and gain a little advantage? I don’t know, maybe I’m skewed from all my years watching stock car racing. In my opinion, virtually every sports participant who can, is going to try and gain every little advantage they can find. That’s how I view this. In racing, they try to exploit every possible thing just to gain a few hundredths of a second.
The only way to fix this, if it really is an issue, would be at the officials level. The officials all have to follow the exact same procedures, from how you hold the scale, to how you connect the fish, to how you “drop” the fish and let it hang. 
Of course we prefer to use scales that have actual digital readouts and a scale platform. Be sure to check out our fishing scales which are great for bass tournaments and more. Contact our customer service department if you have any questions.