Culling Your Fish Accu-cull-rately
For tournament anglers everywhere, the challenge of culling their fish has always been a tricky task. The act of culling is when an angler or team has reached their limit of fish and have to either replace the fish they just caught with one of the fish from the livewell or release it. The majority of fishing tournaments do not allow contestants to keep more fish in their livewell once they have their tournament limit. As you can tell culling the wrong fish can cost you winning a tournament or getting a check, if not done correctly.
In the past, several companies have designed and sold electronic culling systems for anglers to use. Some are extremely complex devices with complicated instructions. Only the minority anglers understood or had time to read the directions during a tournament.
The majority of culling systems come with culling stringers that attach to the fish by clipping on to them. These stringers are either color coded or have a number located on the float. This is to help identify the size fish that is connected to the stringer. To cull, the culling scale would display which stringer (fish) to remove from the livewell and replace with the fish just caught.
In addition to electronic culling systems, there are also an abundant number of manual culling systems or kits available. Some include a grease board with a grease pencil to record the correlating weight and color or number stringer. Another group of companies have started to make colored stringers that you can manually set the weight of the fish according to the fishes weight. By turning the dials located in the float section of the stringer, anglers can see what each fish weigh and which one needs to be culled.
Numerous other culling products are available to anglers that will increase the livelihood of fish returning alive to where they were caught. Of course, the benefit of anglers using a culling system that does not harm fish means more fish for anglers to catch now and in the future.
There are drawbacks to some of these culling systems. The list includes dead batteries, pushing the incorrect button causing an angler to lose all their weights, having to reach into the livewell to check for the lowest weight, chasing the stringers in the livewell, accidentally erasing the grease board with all the weights, or a number of other situations that cause the angler to re-cull or not be able to cull at all.
For Brent Shores, inventor of the Accu-cull Culling System, (https://www.accucull.com) culling is no longer a challenge for him. “Seven years ago I was fishing in a bass tournament where culling was proving to not be an easy task,” Shores continued, “I came up with the idea of creating a better system to cull fish with.” Having experienced this frustration first hand, Shores went to work designing what is now the Accu-cull Culling System.
The Accu-cull Culling System is the size of a VHS tape, saltwater resistant, and has both numbering and color identification so it can work with any scale or culling stringer system you already have or can purchase. So, anglers with color coded culling bags can easily use this system. It is all plastic, ABS construction with no metal parts to rust or fail and made in the United States. The dials lock into place securely and will not shake out of the set position. “Simply rotate the culling system’s wheel up or down to match the weight of the fish that you put in your livewell,” Shores went on, “You can pick any scale you want to use, match the numbers in tenths, ounces, hundredths, and even kilometers; 9.99 is the highest weight it can record, but common sense says if you catch a bass over 10-pounds you probably will not be culling it.”
Shores also suggested anglers use a dark colored culling bag when weighing their fish, “It helps keep the fish from flopping around and makes switching them easier”. The Accu-cull Culling System can be mounted anywhere in the boat but Shores recommended mounting it on the livewell lid. All an angler has to do is secure the cradle that holds the unit on to the lid to the livewell with 1-inch VHB tape and allowed to dry for 24-hours before using. For Shores and other anglers, the Accu-cull Culling System is the answer to the challenge of culling fish. Another advantage to using the Accu-cull Culling System is anglers can use their existing stringers and weigh scale. The answer to Shores culling frustration is now, the answer for anglers everywhere.
- Culling Your Fish Accu-cull-rately - December 20, 2012