Crappie-catching Story

[Sam]

My partner and I went out of K-Dock today, and we took a beating from the weather.  It was cloudy, cold, and drizzled rain all day.  Also, we couldn't get a single walleye to bite.

But I've got a fish story to share.  Near the end of the trip we visited a brushpile where we've caught crappie before.  We got our crappie poles out with small jigs tied on, and thought we'd try a few casts before quitting for the day.  We caught several undersize crappie, then my partner caught a good keeper.  He was running the trolling motor and I was on the back of the boat, and the wind got us turned around so the brushpile was behind the boat.  Easy for me, but he had to cast behind the boat from the front until he could get us turned back around.

Then he hollered "I've got a good one!" and I grabbed the net because keeper fish were real hard to come by.  Unfortunately, his line got around the prop of the main motor and it broke off.  As I started to put the net away I saw a big crappie splash on top right above the motor prop - then it started to drift away, laying on it's side with a jig and a foot of line hanging out of its mouth and just fins and the tail moving a little.

"BACK THIS THING UP!", I yelled - and he did.  He backed the boat up with the trolling motor for 8-10 feet and I was able to lean out with the net and scoop the still-comatose crappie up.  It was a 14 3/4" white crappie, and after breaking off it had somehow knocked itself out against the boat while thrashing around and getting the broke-off line free from the main motor prop.  LOL  Never saw that happen before!

[Forsythian]

Good to know you're still out there Sam!  Hope all is well with you