Quite A Catch: Nearly 82-Pound Striped Bass

Courant.com ^ | August 13, 2011 | JEFF OTTERBEIN

[raybbr]

Greg Myerson knew what he had

[aruanan]

Here's the 78.5lb 54" record holder. Compare and contrast.

[Calvin Locke]

In Maine, they're known to chase pogies (menhaden) into coves,
eventually depleting all the O2, killing the school.

The decaying fish, if not removed by tides, generate enough sulfur
dioxide to peel the paint off nearby houses.

[aruanan]

"It’s the camera angle."

It may be the lens that was used, too. It looks to me like his elbows are very close to his body to help support the weight of the fish. What would be the point in faking this photo anyway?

It's neither the camera angle nor the lens. The fish is being held out farther from his body. Since it is closer to the camera, it looks bigger than it would if he had held it right next to his body like the guy did who is the current record holder. Also, notice the difference in girth in the record holding fish (in one of the posts above) compared to the one this guy is holding. Notice there's nothing in the story about the weight and length having been verified. Why would anyone want to claim something that wasn't true? Look at politics, but then think of the term "fish story" and you'll see that it's not uncommon.

[aruanan]

Also compare the size of the pectoral fin to the girth of the fish in both photos. The one in the color photo looks like a much more juvenile fish.

[Arrowhead1952]

Looks like the right lbs for the size. I had one break new 17 lb test line from the bank a couple of years ago. Another angler in a boat caught a 45 lb striped bass about two weeks later in the same area and said it had several hooks in its mouth. They weighed and measured it, then turned it loose back into Lake Travis.

[cherry]

the pic on the right looks very phoney....if that fish weighed 80+pounds, that guy would be straining a little bit more...

[momtothree]

I have to ask: does your nephew refer to them as Striped Bass or Rockfish? I think Marylanders may be the only ones who use the term “Rockfish”?!

[PhilipFreneau]

>>>We have stripers here at Lake of the Ozarks but nothing this big...<<<

The freshwater stripers are getting bigger. For many years the record stood at 55 pounds, caught in South Carolina near the area where they were originally land-locked during spawning back in the 1940’s. Now the world record is 67 1/2 pounds caught in San Luis, California.

http://www.striperspace.com/freshwater_stripers.html

My biggest freshwater striper was 34 pounds. But I hooked one that was at least 45 pounds that broke off near the bank. The record in that SC/GA lake (Lake Thurmond) is currently 55 pounds.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The Missouri Department of Conservation stocks oceangoing striper bass in Lake of the Ozarks. They can be found all over the lake but the best place go catch them is Ha Ha Tonka Cove where a year round spring empties into the lake. Water in this cove is almost always 5 or 10 degrees cooler than the rest of the lake.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I recall seeing what was said to be a 90 pound paddlefish in the back of a guy's pickup truck a few years back. He said that after snagging it, he had to beach his boat and land the fish on shore.

[Flag_This]

"think of the term "fish story" and you'll see that it's not uncommon."

But most fish stories aren't covered in the news with photographs only to be easily refuted. Your 15 minutes of fame will turn into a lifetime of ridicule.

[clive bitterman]

It’s real - Greg Myerson is a big guy (6’4” and stocky) whereas Al McReynolds (the previous record holder from New Jersey in the black and white photo) was more normal sized. Myerson is what us Striper hounds refer to as a “sharpie” - a dedicated Striper chaser who is out almost every night and has many previous huge fish to his credit. While I wish the record could have stayed in NJ, congratulations are in order to a guy who has put his time in and now has his reward. Interestingly, just a month ago another monster of 77 pounds was also caught (I think off of Rhode Island) by another sharpie who also has many other over 50 pound stripers to his credit. That’s where the big girls are at this time of the year in the New England waters.

[Vendome]

No way he is holding 82 pounds out in front of him like that.

Still... Lucky Bastuhd.

[Louis Foxwell]

Good question.

In MD they are rock or rocks or rockfish, not stripers. I remember catching 15 pounders from shore on the Wye river on a moonless night. When I splashed these big guys came to my feet looking for a meal.

[aruanan]

But most fish stories aren't covered in the news with photographs only to be easily refuted.

Compare his ~82 pound fish with the current record fish. Note the size of the pectoral fin of each fish with respect to the girth of each and you'll see his fish is not almost 82 pounds. It looks considerably smaller than the record fish.

But most fish stories aren't covered in the news with photographs only to be easily refuted. Your 15 minutes of fame will turn into a lifetime of ridicule.

Look at everything in the news with plenty of photographs and videos and sound recordings of folks like Clinton and Barry Obama and see that, to this point, their lies have only benefited them. This isn't lost on the populace, even the fish-catching populace.

[Yosemitest]

Greg Myerson of North Branford shows off the 81.88-pound, 54-inch striped bass he caught earlier this month. (August 13, 2011)
He caught the striper off Westbrook in Long Island Sound.

[aruanan]

Here are two ways of showing differences between the actual record holder and this alleged record breaker. First is length. The guy is holding his fish out as far as he can to make it look as large as he can by contrast with his teeny head, but his right hand grasping the fish can be used to judge length. Give him a very generous 4 inches from the outside of his forefinger to the outside of his pinkie, copy and paste this portion of his body along the length of the fish. You come up with 10 and a half widths. This comes to about 42" overall length, certainly nowhere near what he claims as the length.



Another measure is to compare the size of the pectoral fins against the height of the fish across the same portions of their bodies. The pectoral fin/width ratio for the 78.5 lb record holder is about 5:1 with a little extra. The same ratio for the alleged new record is 3:1 with a little extra, only about 60% that of the record holder. 60% of 78.5 lbs is about 47 lbs. That's a lot closer to what the alleged record breaker is holding in his hands than almost 82 pounds. It's probably closer to 40 pounds than to 50 pounds.

[aruanan]

It’s real - Greg Myerson is a big guy (6’4” and stocky)

No, judging from dimensions between body parts of the two fish and the breadth of the guy's four fingers to the length of the fish he's holding, it's not what he says it is.

[Flag_This]

"Note the size of the pectoral fin of each fish with respect to the girth of each and you'll see his fish is not almost 82 pounds."

Look at the area above the eye on both fish. Either the new fish has been lobotomized, or else the camera is low and the fish is angling back - so you are not seeing a large portion of the top of the new fish.

If the current record-holding fish is 54" then judging by the photo, the guy who caught it is about 5' 2."

Photography can mess with perspective and spatial relations - heck, that's how they shot half of the hobbit / human scenes in Lord of the Rings.

Here's another photo of the fish and the fisherman. The guy who caught it is 6' 4" and 275 lbs:

[aruanan]

Photography can mess with perspective and spatial relations - heck, that's how they shot half of the hobbit / human scenes in Lord of the Rings.

That's why I used elements of the photograph that weren't affected by perspective and spatial relations, such as the hand that was at the same distance from the camera as the fish and the pectoral fin width to body height. The fish in the porch photo is not rotated to make its profile narrower because the caudal fins are clearly evident in both. The head in the porch photo is much longer than in the orange shirt photo. This would have nothing to do with perspective because the shingles on the house even farther to the left of the head are not elongated. Also, notice that the markings on the pectoral fins and the belly are different between the two photos.