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There are two kinds of fishermen in this world: those who do it for nothing but the pleasure, and those who keep score.
This is for those who keep score.
This will settle bragging rights at the campfire and arguments during the drive home from the lake. and it might spark a few arguments, too.
With the fishing season in full swing in Wisconsin and about to start in Minnesota, I’m availing to you, free of charge, the hallowed Dave & Steve Fishing Point System. It’s one of the silliest, yet most fun, endeavors my fishing buddies and I use this time of year, and I’m hoping you’ll try it out. (Download it at tinyurl.com/fishpoint)
Reckon of it as a Boone and Crockett score except, instead of antlers, it’s fish. Every fish. of every size.
It answers eternal questions such as: Which is better, a 22-inch walleye or a 28-inch northern pike? (The walleye is 2.5 times better.)
How it works
The system is based on the premise that some fish are inherently more valuable than others. and that more is better, but bigger is best.
The base unit – 1 point – is your basic sunfish, with “basic” defined as up to 8 inches. Catch seven sunnies between 5 and 7 inches, and you’ve got seven points.
A basic largemouth bass (up to 14 inches) is 10 points. Walleye, northern pike and smallmouth, the standard trifecta of Minnesota game fish, are 20. (Did I mention this is subjective?)
Of course, a big bluegill – say, an 8-incher – is surely worth more than a 6-inch bluegill, so you earn more points for the bigger fish.
The bluegill is also worth more than a foot-long largemouth. But probably not more than an 18-inch walleye, right? So how many 8-inch bluegills does it take to equal an 18-inch walleye? and how many 18-inch walleyes would it take to equal the grand poobah of the system, a monster muskie?
You can see how the simple thought of settling bragging rights becomes a quest for the grand unification theory of angling. Not to worry; we’ve figured it all out for you with the Dave & Steve system. (A 50-inch muskie is 3,500 points, and the 18-inch walleye is 60 points, so â ¦ you do the math.)
The system can be used to score a single afternoon, a weeklong trip or an entire year. there are multipliers for ice fishing (double points) and penalties for fishing alone (half points), if that’s to be allowed.
It wasn’t always so complicated.
I bet there have been point systems since man first dropped a rock onto a fish. As a kid, I employed a primitive system. five points for the most fish, five for the largest. then we needed a tiebreaker if one guy caught the most and the other caught the largest, so a 1-point bonus for the first fish of the day was added. This led to sprints through the woods, rods already strung with a choice lure, to grab that point.
Different systems
There are all sorts of ways people keep score.
I heard from one crew that sets a certain species as the target fish for the month. For that month – crappies in April, for example – nothing else matters except the angler with the largest crappie.
Erik Boxmeyer of Hugo and a buddy stage a one-lure cage match.
“We both have the same jerkbait, and we’ve got a contest to see who catches the first muskie over 40 inches,” he explained. “Winner gets to claim a bait from the loser’s tackle box.” High stakes.
I’ve done the 10-lure shootout on wilderness trips in which packing light is encouraged. each guy packs only 10 lures – and hopes he has chosen wisely.
Professional fishing tournaments, mainly walleye and bass, have a simple way to score: total pounds. If you want to encourage catch-and-release, you need length as a factor. The Professional Musky Tournament Trail has the following formula: 30 points for a 34-inch fish and one point for each quarter-inch above that.
But to account for different kinds of fish, you need to get more refined.
Work in progress
The Dave & Steve system is named after yours truly and Steve Safranski, who now hails from Eden Prairie but years ago hailed from the same bachelor pad as I. two single dudes, no careers, lots of fishing – of course we had to keep score.
Steve deserves the credit for coming up with the spectrum of points for different fish, although I’ve since learned that his genius isn’t unique. The Ultimate Angler Challenge has a simpler, but similar, system for its multispecies leagues in northern Minnesota. and the online good Fish apparel store has a scoring grid for ocean fish that’s 15 pages.
Our scoring system is always a work in progress, and no doubt some of you will object in the strongest possible terms to some assessment we’ve made. Don’t get mad; make your own changes.
Half the fun is debating the system. The other half is fishing.
Well, more than half.
Why score?
I know, fishing is a pastime, not a competition.
That’s true. Technically.
A small friendly competition never (or rarely) hurt anyone. it doesn’t mean you’re a jerk. most folks do it anyway.
The chump catching nothing notices when his old man is hauling them in one after another. (Especially when the old man drops a line such as, “You wanna try my lure?”)
The wife gloats just a bit when the largest walleye on the stringer is hers.
A whiff of competitiveness is hidden in that basic question among strangers at the boat launch: “How’d you guys do?”
But exactly who did better, who won if I dare use the word, isn’t always clear.
Until now.
Dave Orrick can be reached at 651-228-5512. Follow him at twitter.com/OutdoorsNow.
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by the comment. thanks.