Catch-and-Release Scoring Guide

Why Length, Not Weight?

Traditional fishing tournaments weigh fish. That means keeping fish alive in livewells for hours, hauling them to a weigh station, and hoping they survive release.

Many don't survive.

Tournament mortality rates for bass hover between 5% and 40%. Hot weather makes it worse. Long days make it worse. Rough boat rides make it worse.

Length-based scoring fixes this. Measure the fish on a bump board. Photograph it. Put it back. The whole process takes under two minutes. The fish swims away healthy.

How the Bump Board Works

A bump board is a flat measuring device with a wall at one end. Place the fish with its mouth against the wall. The tail extends along the ruler markings. The DerbyFish app captures this measurement from your photo.

The key is consistency. Every angler uses the same type of measurement. No disputes about whether a fish was "pinched" or "fanned." Mouth closed against the wall, natural tail position.

How Scoring Works

Each derby defines its scoring rules. The most common format:

Total length — Sum of your top catches (usually 3 or 5 fish)
Longest single fish — Biggest catch wins
Species-specific — Only target species count

Verification scores break ties. Two anglers with the same total length? The one with higher verification scores wins. This rewards clean submissions and honest documentation.

The Conservation Math

A 200-boat bass tournament using traditional weigh-ins kills an estimated 50-400 fish per event. Scale that across thousands of tournaments per year.

Catch-and-release scoring with BHRV verification drops that number close to zero. The fish is in your hands for seconds, not hours.

This isn't about being soft. It's about being smart. Healthy fisheries mean better fishing for everyone. Kill tournaments and you eventually kill the fishing.

Mastery, Not Depletion

The best anglers don't need to kill fish to prove they're good. They find them. They hook them. They land them. They document the evidence. They release them.

That's mastery. Finding and catching, over and over, with proof.

DerbyFish is built on this principle. The platform rewards skill, not destruction. Your FishDex grows. Your leaderboard rank climbs. The fish keep swimming.

Getting Started with Catch-and-Release Derbies

Grab a bump board (any standard fish measuring board works). Practice the BHRV sequence a few times with casual catches. Then join a derby and see how your fish stack up.

Complete Guide to Catch-and-Release Scoring