Walleye weight calculator: length to pounds

Is it a walleye or a sauger?

Three marks separate them, and you can check all three while the fish is still in the net.

• Lower tail lobe. A walleye has a clean white tip on the bottom of the tail. A sauger does not.
• Spiny dorsal fin. A sauger's front dorsal carries rows of distinct black spots. A walleye's has a dark blotch at the rear base instead.
• Sides. Sauger show dark saddle blotches over a brassy background; walleye are more uniformly olive and gold.

This matters here because sauger are slimmer for their length. Running a sauger through the walleye equation gives you a number that is too heavy, and we have not implemented a sauger equation because we have not found one we can verify to the standard set out in ourresearch methodology. A wrong answer with a citation is still a wrong answer.

What equation does this use?

log10(Ws) = −5.453 + 3.18 × log10(TL), weight in grams and total length in millimetres. It is a regression-line-percentile fit, meaning the curve traces the 75th percentile of the weights recorded at each length rather than the average — so a fish landing exactly on the curve is in good condition, not middling condition.

The dataset behind it is the reason to prefer it over anything a tackle shop chart offers: 42,487 walleye from 114 populations. The exponent of 3.18 is the lowest of the three species on this site, which is why a walleye and a largemouth bass of the same length diverge so sharply as they get longer.

Where does this walleye weight data come from?

The curve is the Murphy, Brown and Springer (1990) walleye standard-weight equation from the FSA standard-weight database — a regression-line-percentile fit on tens of thousands of fish across more than a hundred populations. Lean, typical and heavy settings are relative-weight bands, not marketing labels. Source URLs and verification dates sit on each sourced value and are collected on ourresearch methodology page. We still will not invent a sauger equation we cannot verify to that same standard.

What works for walleye on the Mississippi River?

Below Genoa the productive window is often the hour either side of sunrise and sunset against current seams and the dam face — the same light window ourour best fishing time calculator scores highest. Pool 8's four-fish bag and Pool 9's protected slot change what you keep, not what the tape says the fish weighs. For ramps, gauges and the bag that actually applies, start with thePool 8 walleye water near Genoa.

What does a walleye weigh at each length?

The row anglers argue about most is 28 inches. Typical condition gives 9.1 pounds, and the heavy column gives 10.5. That is where the "ten pound walleye" actually lives — a well-conditioned 28-inch fish, or a typical fish an inch or two longer. The claim that you need 30 inches to break ten pounds is off by about two inches in the fish's favour.

Two worked examples from the Mississippi

If the fish in the net is a bass from the same stretch, switch to thebass weight calculator — a 20-inch largemouth and a 20-inch walleye are not close in weight.

A 15-inch keeper from Pool 9 in July

15 in is 381 mm. The log of 381 is 2.58092; multiplied by 3.18 that is 8.20732; subtract 5.453 for 2.75432, so Ws = 568 g, or 1.25 lb. Midsummer fish in the pools tend to be in ordinary condition, so typical is the right setting here. The range on that fish is 1.13 to 1.38 lb — a spread of four ounces, which is the honest resolution of this method on a small walleye.

A 28-inch pre-spawn female below Lock and Dam 9 in March

28 in is 711.2 mm, log 2.85199, times 3.18 is 9.06933, minus 5.453 gives 3.61633, and Ws = 4,134 g, or 9.11 lb. She is full of eggs, so Heavy is the correct setting: 10.48 lb, range 9.57 to 11.39. Catch the same fish in mid-May after she has dropped and the lean setting is closer to right, at 7.75 lb. A 2.7-pound swing on one fish at one length, and nothing about the length changed.

What do walleye anglers get wrong?

Misidentifying a sauger is first, and it is the reason that section sits above the equation on this page rather than buried at the bottom.

Second is measuring to the fork. Walleye tails are moderately forked, so the error is smaller than on a channel catfish but it still runs one direction: always light, by roughly half an inch on a 24-inch fish, which is about four ounces of weight.

Third is applying a summer chart to a March fish. Those are not the same fish even when the tape says the same thing, and the difference between the lean and heavy columns above is not a rounding error — on a 28-inch walleye it is nearly three pounds.

Fourth is a legal one rather than a mathematical one. Walleye length limits are not identical on the Wisconsin and Minnesota sides of the boundary water, and the state whose water you are physically fishing sets the rules regardless of which license you bought. Thelicense finder works through which state's rules apply where you are standing.