Personal best Black crappie

[GANGGREEN]

I figured that a personal best probably justified its own thread.  I got a 17", 2.8 pound Black crappie this afternoon.  d**n fine fish.  I've caught a reasonable number of "good ones" of multiple species over the years, but I'm pretty jazzed about this fish.

 

 

[Skunkmaster-k]

Gosh dang dude! That’s a monster! You gonna eat her?

[GANGGREEN]

Just now, Skunkmaster-k said:

Gosh dang dude! That’s a monster! You gonna eat her?

 

No.  I like Crappie, but truthfully, I release 90% of them and I never keep the big ones.  Aside from the fact that they're the more efficient and effective breeders, the big ones simply don't taste as well as a 10" crappie, I don't care what anyone says.

 

[GreenPig]

Very Nice.

[BigAngus752]

Great fish!  Nice work!  +1 on letting the big ones go.  Keeping the gene pool prime. 

[AlabamaSpothunter]

Wow that's awesome, you just barely beat my PB that I caught a month or two back at 2.7.

 

Congrats.

[Jar11591]

Slab! 

[JustJames]

Congrats for giant slab.

[GANGGREEN]

10 hours ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

Wow that's awesome, you just barely beat my PB that I caught a month or two back at 2.7.

 

Congrats.

 

The truth is that I never really expected to catch one quite this big, though I've caught a number that were probably in the 1.5-2 pound range, but now that I've caught this one, my goal is now to catch a 3-pounder.   Who knows whether I'll be able to or not.   Yeah, I know that many state records are over 4 pounds, but when I netted this fish and brought it in the boat, I was truly flabbergasted at how big it really was.

 

[Mobasser]

Very nice fish. Congratulations!

[roadwarrior]

 

 

                                    

[Dwight Hottle]

Congrats on the PB trophy. 

[Jig Man]

16 hours ago, GANGGREEN said:

 

No.  I like Crappie, but truthfully, I release 90% of them and I never keep the big ones.  Aside from the fact that they're the more efficient and effective breeders, the big ones simply don't taste as well as a 10" crappie, I don't care what anyone says.

 

Good for you.  One that reaches that size should be kept in the gene pool.

[AlabamaSpothunter]

2 hours ago, GANGGREEN said:

 

The truth is that I never really expected to catch one quite this big, though I've caught a number that were probably in the 1.5-2 pound range, but now that I've caught this one, my goal is now to catch a 3-pounder.   Who knows whether I'll be able to or not.   Yeah, I know that many state records are over 4 pounds, but when I netted this fish and brought it in the boat, I was truly flabbergasted at how big it really was.

 

Both mine over 2lbs were caught Bass fishing.....the one time I went Crappie fishing I hammered the Bass and caught zero Crappie ?

 

My SR is 4.4lb IIrc......to me catching a 2.5lb Crappie must be akin to catching a DD LGM.  

[DitchPanda]

Biggest crappie I've caught was 15.5 in right around 2lbs....looks like I've got work to do!

[GANGGREEN]

2 hours ago, DitchPanda said:

Biggest crappie I've caught was 15.5 in right around 2lbs....looks like I've got work to do!

 

Oddly, my biggest was probably close to that for years, but I also caught a 14" and a 15.5" crappie earlier this week, so maybe I'm starting to key in on them.

 

[gim]

I've never caught one remotely that big.  My PB is about 13 inches.  I've been trying to catch a 15+ incher for years every spring.  Panfishing and crappie fishing is not really my speciality though, and the window of opportunity is not very long.

 

The state record here in MN is 5.0 pounds.  That is a record that will never be broken.  Most sizable crappies here hit the frypan, and it takes them a very long time to get to trophy size up here in the north.

 

Congrats on the slab, thank you for releasing it.

[GANGGREEN]

Yeah, I've spent the first 50-something years of my life fishing up north all year, so it's either ice fishing at this time of year, no fishing at all or really toughing it out to catch a few fish somewhere that might have open water in a mild winter.   We're down south for 5 months or so each year now and it's a whole different ballgame.   A lot of the locals don't fish at this time of year a lot because "it's winter", but even a relatively harsh winter down here still amounts to 50 degree temps or better on the lake that I was fishing (water temp was 57 when I caught this one) and they do have a much longer growing season obviously, although they're still far more dormant in the winter than the summertime, even in the south.

 

Believe me though, I dearly love being able to go out in a sweatshirt or light jacket in January and have a much better than average chance to catch something and a decent chance to catch something really good.  I wouldn't have traded all of the years that I lived up north because I was blessed with some fabulous fisheries up there too, but I'm happy with my best of both worlds snowbird lifestyle that I've had these last two years.

 

[Bankbeater]

Nice slab.  Congratulations!

[TnRiver46]

Slabtastic

[N Florida Mike]

I haven’t fished for them near as much as Bass or bream, but My PB is 1 3/4 pounds. Caught in Sante Fe lake on a white rooster tail off a brush pile…

[SC53]

2.5 for me, wife got a. 2.7.  That’s a slab for sure. 

[Jar11591]

On 1/21/2023 at 9:58 AM, AlabamaSpothunter said:

.the one time I went Crappie fishing I hammered the Bass and caught zero Crappie ?

Same for me. I love frying up some crappie. My favorite freshwater fish to eat without a doubt. But every single one I catch is incidental while bass fishing. The few times I’ve gone out targeting crappie, i blank on em and fill the stringer with bluegills and pumpkinseeds. 

[Jar11591]

My PB was just over 16”. It smashed a popper. I was messing around walking the bank of the pond at my parents camp trying for a couple bass. Didn’t know there were crappie in there until I got that one. 
 

 

[GANGGREEN]

1 hour ago, Jar11591 said:

Same for me. I love frying up some crappie. My favorite freshwater fish to eat without a doubt. But every single one I catch is incidental while bass fishing. The few times I’ve gone out targeting crappie, i blank on em and fill the stringer with bluegills and pumpkinseeds. 

 

The lake that I live on in the winter/spring is like that (where this big fish was caught).  The local fishermen, even the serious ones suggest that Crappie are occasionally caught as incidental to bass and you aren't going to catch them by pursuing them intentionally, but I just don't buy it.  There are Crappie in the lake and some big ones and a smart fisherman should be able to figure out their daily and seasonal patterns and catch them more predictably than that.   The first year that we were here, I literally caught a few and most of them were accidental, but so far this winter I've had slightly better luck and have caught at least a few each time out when really looking for them.  Eventually I hope to get to the point where I really could go out and catch 4 or 5 for dinner almost at will, but we'll see.  There are better lakes down here where you can go out and catch numbers of them if you know what you're doing and you really try, but I tend to stick to the "home lake" for whatever reason.