Fishing scales: how to weigh a fish without hurting it, and which scale to buy

The method matters more than the scale

Our catch and release page argues that you do not need a weigh net or a lip-grip scale unless you genuinely want the weight. This page is for the reader who does — a personal best, a club record, a kid who wants to know — and the point is that wanting the number does not have to cost the fish anything.

Weigh the fish in the net. Hook the scale to the net handle or the hoop, with the fish lying in the mesh as it already is. The net supports the fish along its whole length, which is how a fish is built to be supported.

Tare the net out. Weigh the wet empty net first, zero the scale against it, then weigh fish and net together. The reading is the fish. This is the single reason tare appears at the top of the criteria below.

Never hang a fish vertically by the jaw. A fish’s internal organs are supported by water, not by connective tissue. Hanging it by the lower jaw puts the whole body weight on the jaw joint and lets the organs settle against the body wall. Our catch and release page makes this point about grippers in general; it applies with more force when there is a scale on the end adding leverage.

Have the scale zeroed and ready before the fish is out of the water. The clock starts when the fish comes out, and fumbling with a menu is the expensive part.

Measure length as well. Length is the figure that is comparable year to year and between anglers, it takes two seconds, and it does not require lifting the fish at all. If you only record one number, record length.

The four criteria, in order

1. Tare. Without it the weigh-in-the-net method is a two-step subtraction while a fish waits. With it, one reading. This is the feature to buy on.

2. A display you can read in sun and dark. You weigh fish at dawn, at dusk, and in flat midday glare. A backlit or reverse-image screen is the difference between reading the number and squinting at it.

3. Water resistance. The scale lives in the same wet pocket as everything else. Neither maker publishes an IP rating, so look for a stated water-resistant construction at minimum.

4. Memory, if you care about records. Storage locations or averaging. Useful, and the last thing to choose on.

Capacity is not on the list, because 50 lb covers every freshwater fish this site discusses, with room to spare. A 50 lb scale will weigh any bass, walleye, pike or channel cat you are likely to land.

The two scales, as published

Four of those ten rows read “not published” on one side or the other, and both makers decline to publish an accuracy figure. For a measuring instrument that is a remarkable omission, and it is the honest headline of this comparison: you are buying a number-producing device from two companies that will not tell you how close the number is.

Why we are not recommending a gripper-scale combo

Both brands sell a combined lip gripper and scale, and they are popular. We are not featuring one, for the reason set out at the top of this page: the combo exists to let you clamp a fish’s jaw and hang its whole weight from it.

That is the specific thing not to do. The tool is not the problem in itself — a gripper used to control a toothy fish beside the boat, with the fish still supported, is fine — but a gripper with a scale on the end is a tool designed around hanging the fish vertically, and that is how it gets used.

Buy a plain scale and weigh in the net. It costs less, it works better with tare, and nothing about it encourages the bad version.

What we would skip

Lower-capacity versions of the same scale. Berkley lists a 35 lb model alongside the 50. There is no reason to prefer it: 50 lb already covers every freshwater fish on this site, and buying less capacity for the same job only narrows what the tool can do.

Spring scales with a dial. They are cheap and they have no tare, no backlight and no memory, which means all four criteria above fail at once.

Luggage scales. They work, and plenty of anglers use one. The honest note is that they are not built for a wet pocket and none of them publish a water rating either.

What a scale does not tell you

Two things worth being straight about.

Neither of these publishes an accuracy figure, so a reading is a reading rather than a measurement. If you are weighing for a club record, the club will have its own certified scale, and that is the number that counts.

A fish in a net on a spring scale bounces. Any handheld scale is reading a moving load through your arm. Take three readings and use the middle one, or use the Berkley’s published averaging, and treat the result as close rather than exact.

The rest of the weighing kit

A net is not optional for this method, and it is the other half of the purchase. Frabill publishes its teardrop trout net at 13 × 18 in with a floating hoop and rubberized mesh — rubber mesh matters because it does less damage to slime coat and it does not tangle hooks, which our catch and release page covers in full.

You will also want pliers in the other hand and, if any of this is happening at either end of the day, a headlamp so both hands stay free. Weighing a fish well is a two-handed job done quickly, and every second of fumbling is a second the fish is out of the water.

What we are not telling you

We have not tested either scale against a known weight, and neither manufacturer publishes an accuracy specification we could check one against. Every figure on this page is read off the two manufacturer product pages linked below, and where a page leaves something out — Rapala’s empty specifications section, Berkley’s missing tare and battery type — this page says so rather than filling the gap from retailer copy or customer reviews.

The weighing method above is standard fish-handling practice rather than something we measured. It follows from how a fish is supported in water, and it is the same argument our catch and release page makes about time out of the water and vertical loads.