4/11 marin stripers

played a short hooky day...launched late and paddled to my "sure thing" outgoing spot.  Got six in total (that's three limits?) in the 2 hours. All dinks, with one exception- which leads me to an AOTY question- I need a ruling.
I marked the mark on my paddle- using the rubber snubber thing -My measurement of the end of paddle to the snubber which i pushed down to her head, is 26.5".
 the pics suck cause everytime i let go long enough to grab the f'in camera, she was flopping around. So, Norcalers whaddya think?
The paddle from end to the electrical tape is 21.5", she's at least 3" longer.  My measurement of the end of paddle to the snubber which i pushed down to her head, is 26.5"

Do the pictures suck enough to not even bother with the AOTY?

pics

Count it, Steve.

IMO the spirit of AOTY should weigh in on each piece of the pie.  You released this nice fish in good faith (I won't bag on the boosting!), and got what photos you could without manhandling her.  I applaud the effort and vote for full acceptance of your entry.  I might be a bit jaded though since my steelhead entry is far from an accurate pic of a measurement and I'm counting on others to trust that I got a firm measurement...  It's also the case though that a re-creation of the scenes in the pics would very likely give excellent confidence that both my measurement and yours are valid.

Good job.   

Steve-

Go for it... We've all seen crazy measurements in this thing... even for this year. I really think that you'll be hooking into a bigger fish though. Put it up and let Bill decide on it... then, upgrade later. It's all good.

Freddie

Thanks folks- i took an inch off the measurement- called it 25.5- that would mean that i was an inch off iwth my rubber snubber measurement. It was quite a bit longer (but skinny), than hte 24"er i got this winter.

Freddie-- late last year i nailed the biggest striper i've caught and landed on a lure off brickyard. Towed me around for half hour... much much much bigger than this one. a flyguy in whaler saw it, but no pics!  That fish is what inspired me to enter AOTY this year (that and the fact that i have 6 weeks off this summer).

Count that fish in. I always think it is better to measure against the kayak than paddle. I was looking at how it looked against the kayak in the picture and it looks about right!  Besides it is smaller than my AOTY striper 


-Brian G

Count it. But next time, eat it too!! I hear that you can beat an extra inch out of them with a billy...
Nice fish too.

Count it. But next time, eat it too!! I hear that you can beat an extra inch out of them with a billy...
Nice fish too.

I kind of think of these stripers as my pet fish... and I couldn't eat my pet.  They're always in the same little 100yd long spot, year after year

Nice fish and thanks for the report. I say count it for AOTY.