I was fortunate enough to get a crappie that I deemed worthy for my wall on new years eve night. I headed out to a small lake with a friend of mine to chase some after dark crappies. We set up over 20 FOW just before sundown and put our baits down and waited for dark hoping to see the fish move in for an evening feed. We managed a total of 6 fish for the night but the first one of the night outweighed the other 5 combined and made the trip one to remember.
As I was watching my flasher I noticed a mark up very high in the water, around 3 feet under the ice. I was fishing a 1/64 ounce UV tungsten jig with a small crappie minnow hooked through the back. I reeled up just above the mark, almost too high to see my bait and I had an instant strike. I took a swing and missed. At this point I’m scrambling to get another minnow and get back in the water. The fish had left the screen but I dropped down and kept it high in the column again to see if it was still in the area and sure enough about 5 feet down a red mark came in, cruised up and crushed it. Another swing, another miss! I couldn’t believe I had missed it again but at this point I hadn’t put a hook in the fish to know if it had any size. I quickly put another minnow on, dropped down and that mark came back in at 5 feet, cruised up to the bait, stalled right on it and then, bang, I got the hit I was looking for. I laid the wood on it this time around and new it had to be a fairly nice fish but being only 3 feet down I couldn’t be sure. It had me wrapped around my transducer about 3 times so at this point I’m thinking the resistance from the line is making the fish feel bigger than it is. I held my rod up and grabbed my transducer spinning it to free the line and once it did, I got a better feel for the size of the fish. How it did not come off during the transducer fiasco is beyond me but was certainly pleased it did not. Now that disaster had been evaded I turn the fish into the hole and as the nose breached the water and I got my first look at it, SNAP, the line breaks and I have my trophy bobbing in the hole and beginning to sink back down when my friends hands turned to eagle talons and he dove down and locked on behind the head. We new it was a nice fish but as he pulled it out of the hole and it felt like it just kept coming all we could do was shout, scream, curse, laugh all at the same time. A once in a lifetime fish for the small body of water we were fishing and finally one for the wall! 16″ and just shy of 3#.
Sorry for the rant but it was an unbelievable way to land the fish and a story that I will be sharing for a long time to come.
If it doesn't matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score? Vince Lombardi
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