I watch a lot of YouTube videos and I'm better than just about any of the YouTube creators at guessing weight. I can usually predict what the scale will read within a couple ounces. One reliable indicator is how much the lower jaw gets stretched. The lower jaw really just when a bass is over four pounds. See here:

That one is getting filed into my memory bank

Years of being the weigh master for my local Club plus weighing my own gave me a good eye for weights but only up to about 4-5 pounds, over that I have a lot less experience. Without weighing them, length is the best for estimating weight for me.

Hmm. Maybe. Problem is, "four-pounder" is a category of bass with a lot of variation in length, girth, age, geography, forage availability, and seasonal timing.

I would submit that quick observations like this may be reliable in the context of a location and seasonal time, but likely limited in generalization beyond that.

I need to guess which lake to fish, when to go, which bait to throw

and where to cast.

Once I get all that right,

I'm done guessing.

A-Jay

I’m better at guessing the weight of a pizza than any bass.

I’ve gotten to be pretty good at estimating weight based on length. I measure most of my fish.

I'm better at guessing other peoples catches than my own.

I estimate weight the old fashion way. I add a pound every time I tell the story.

I can get pretty close on LM up to around 6 lbs and Spots up to 3 lbs. Any Spot over 4 or LM over 9 and my jaw is the one stretching.

I’m horrible at guessing weights, I’m always way wrong. I think it’s because I don’t have a reference point. In a picture I pick out something in the back ground or even the hands and fingers holding the fish. A person then can a do a quick reference/ comparison for size.

Guessing the weight….. I go nothing, even holding it, I’m way wrong.

46 minutes ago, GRiver said:

I’m horrible at guessing weights, I’m always way wrong. I think it’s because I don’t have a reference point. In a picture I pick out something in the back ground or even the hands and fingers holding the fish.

Guessing a bass's weight from a photo is hard, for sure, because of the frequent lack of a reference point. For example, photographing a bass on the grass provides no reference points. Guessing weight in a YouTube video is easier, at least for me, because you have lots of references points. You get to see the bass next to this and that, the various objects that we know.

However, regardless of length, four pounds is the point where the jaw really juts. It's just an observation that I'm made after catching many bass. And another observation that I've made is that a 19" can weigh 6.5 pounds like the ones that @Bluebasser86 catches, or 3.5 pounds if it's old and skinny, so whereas I use length to estimate weight, you have to factor the bass's girth too and girth goes up and down. A big belly down below is one way to add weight, but up top, big shoulders add weight too. For example, this bass had zero belly and wasn't that long compared to Florida bass, but weighed 6.54 pounds, all in the shoulders:

If you're wondering why I simply don't weigh most of my bass, I did once weigh enough to get a pretty good bead on bass weight and I like to release my fish in 30 seconds or less. However, to brush up my weight-estimating skills, I plan to weigh a few more fish this year.

54 minutes ago, GRiver said:

I’m horrible at guessing weights

Same. But seriously, you tell someone you caught an “x” lber and they can’t visualize it anyway, so it was never important to me

I weigh a couple of decent ones a year early in the season to get my eye in. But anything 15-16" and under doesn't get weighed. That's a nominal 2# fish. Maybe 2.5. Maybe 2.25. If it's fat I'll call it a chunky 2.5. The difference is meaningless for me since I'm not putting them on a tournament scale. When we start up around 18-19" then I'm a lot more curious.

For me, head size is thing that makes me take notice. A fish's gut will get bigger and smaller but it's head keeps growing through its life. And the head/jaw is the place you grab most any big fish so you get a good reference of your own hand. When a bass's jaw (largemouth) is big enough that you start grabbing it with multiple fingers in the mouth and your thumb on the OUTSIDE you know you've got a good one.

8 minutes ago, casts_by_fly said:

For me, head size is thing that makes me take notice. A fish's gut will get bigger and smaller but it's head keeps growing through its life. And the head/jaw is the place you grab most any big fish so you get a good reference of your own hand. When a bass's jaw (largemouth) is big enough that you start grabbing it with multiple fingers in the mouth and your thumb on the OUTSIDE you know you've got a good one.

I agree with all of this.

I’ve thought about one of theses

https://fishtechy.com/

I’m an overweight guesser.

21 minutes ago, Skunkmaster-k said:

I’m an overweight guesser.

I'm just overweight.

During a PM exchange with member here a while back one of the subjects we briefly touched upon was weight guestimates. I posted these pictures as an example:

His response: "Ha!  That’s a dink. Without a scale that’s a pound and a halfer."

Weight is actually 4lbs 1.8 ounces-ish. That scale registers ounces in 10ths.

I'll let him reveal himself if he remembers the convo.

On 3/15/2026 at 9:35 PM, Columbia Craw said:

I’m better at guessing the weight of a pizza than any bass.

So you're the guy who buys his pizza by the pound.

"Yea, let me get 3 1/2 pounds of the pepperoni with da extra cheese this time -oh and make it stuffed crust !"

Thanks

A-Jay

33 minutes ago, PhishLI said:

During a PM exchange with member here a while back one of the subjects we briefly touched upon was weight guestimates. I posted these pictures as an example:

His response: "Ha!  That’s a dink. Without a scale that’s a pound and a halfer."

Weight is actually 4lbs 1.8 ounces-ish. That scale's registers ounces in 10ths.

I let him reveal himself if he remembers the convo.

Felt like something id say so had to check. Yup.

I stand by what i said too. Without putting the fish on an actual scale, it doesn’t look very big in the first pic. There is nothing of scale to compare it against (the rods are too far away). The length is far more than the girth saying long and skinny. And the mouth looks small from the way you’re grabbing it and the size relative to your fingers. I’d you told me the actual weight was 1.5-2# I’d believe you. Alas, it’s not.

9 minutes ago, casts_by_fly said:

The length is far more than the girth saying long and skinny. And the mouth looks small from the way you’re grabbing it and the size relative to your fingers.

That's true, and with nothing known for scale, you just can't tell. No one could really. You have no way of knowing I have thick wrists and wear an XL glove.

17 hours ago, Swamp Girl said:

I like to release my fish in 30 seconds or less.

I weight just about every fish I catch. I use a Chatillion and Sons spring scale. I don't have to turn it on. It's already zeroed with the fish gripper I use. I can weight a fish in 15-20 seconds most of the time. I toss the scale up on the front deck when I start fishing so I won't have to spend time pulling it out. It gets splashed and stepped on but it's indestructible. It's accurate to within an ounce.

I’ve learned every season that bass are all different shapes and lengths and just like the “banana for scale” meme illustrated in a comical fashion - photos of organic life with other random organic non standardized objects in the photo for scale doesn’t really give us much of a sense of scale.

My favorite is when people say “you can tell by the eyes - if it’s got the rings it’s a giant” - no. My fishing buddy this past weekend caught this fish with rings around its eyes - it’s a 5 lber. It’s not some mythical sized fish.

I catch lots of fish over 8 lbs with no rings around their eyes and small mouths - there’s biology behind this - these are young fish that are feeding themselves well and outgrowing the pack by leaps and bounds.

Not all bass have the same relative growth rates etc.

I catch 9 lbers that can’t be more than 4 years old - they don’t have the length or the giant mouths or the cataracts of older fish.

However I will catch old 3-5 lbers that have horrible relative growth rates. Too much competition or not the right genetics or forage during their main growth years etc. who knows.

All this to say - I cannot guess a fishes weight from a photo - even a photo on a bump board (you don’t get a sense of the girth or depth or height of a fish accurately with a bump board, just length) - I can do okay in person holding and looking at a fish.

Scale is the only way to know what fish weigh.

1 hour ago, Pat Brown said:

Scale is the only way to know what fish weigh.

That's true, as is everything you wrote before the sentence above. It's just that some anglers are so easy-going about keeping a bass from breathing. It's easy to say, "It doesn't hurt them," when you're the one breathing. And yes, yes, I understand that we're poking holes in them, but I try to mitigate the damage, such as keeping them in the net, which is in the water, until my pliers are in my lap and my camera is on and my bump board is set. I watch some videos where the angler is taking one and a half to three minutes to release a bass and not just any bass, but often the best, biggest bass. In northwestern Ontario, where I'd catch a LOT of bass some days, I'd fish with barbless hooks and would release them in the water. I'd do the same with muskies too.

You've written in the past, Pat, about how you do everything you can to lessen the load we ask our quarry to carry, so I understand you're not cavalier about handling bass, but dang, I see some bass on the scale, on the bumpboard, and posed horizontally and vertically. Pick a lane, please.

Of course, @PhishLI's photo refutes my assertion that four pounds is when jaws jut as his four-pounder doesn't have much of a jutting jaw and the my bass in the photo up top might have weighed more than four. I'll never know because I didn't measure her. I can count how many bass I catch without keeping them out of the water any longer. I can't do the same while weighing them.