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“I’m unsure the crappie that took the lure was the biggest of the three”
Eric Allee holds up the brand new state-record black crappie he caught in November. {Photograph} by Eric Allee
Most anglers don’t take into consideration huge crappies coming from Colorado. However Eric Allee might change that notion after catching a slab of a black crappie that broke the state file just a few months in the past.
On Nov. 12, Allee was kayak fishing for bass on a small lake in Adams County east of Denver. (He selected to not share the identify of the lake to keep away from added fishing stress there.) Utilizing forward-facing sonar, he discovered what regarded like a crappie sizzling spot within the lake and tossed out a synthetic lure.
“It was late morning, and I’d already caught a 2.5-pound bass after I observed on my sonar three fish close to a deep sunken brush pile in 14 toes of water,” Allee tells Outside Life. “I figured they have been crappies. So, I eased near them in my kayak to current a small finesse lure.”
Allee was utilizing a 3.6-inch black Berkley Flat Worm with a small 1/32-ounce tungsten nail weight fixed on a 3/0 Eagle Claw Trokar Hook. Allee works because the advertising and marketing director for Eagle Claw Deal with in Denver, and he says it’s the proper setup for what he calls “hover rig” fishing — a finesse approach for vertically jigging comfortable plastic lures.
“It’s a lethal tactic, nevertheless it takes endurance and focus for it to work,” Allee explains. “The fish didn’t take it immediately. I watched them on my Lively Goal sonar for 2 minutes earlier than one hit. And I’m unsure the crappie that took the lure was the biggest of the three.”
Utilizing a 7-foot spinning rod with 15-pound take a look at braid and an 8-pound fluorocarbon chief, Allee simply felt weight on his line, and he lifted the rod to set the hook. It wasn’t a hectic battle due to the cooler water temps. Till, that’s, Allee received the fish close to the floor.
“I used to be nervous netting it after I noticed how huge it was, and thought that it is perhaps a Colorado file,” he says. “Once I measured it, and weighed it fastidiously, that made me much more nervous as a result of I knew it was an enormous of a crappie, particularly for Colorado.”
A seasoned kayak match bass angler, Allee carries measuring boards and a scale to doc his catches. He says that he recurrently catches and eats crappies, however when he realized it was a possible state-record fish, he determined to launch it into the lake.
Together with another state fish and recreation companies, Colorado Parks and Wildlife maintains fishing file books for each weight information and size information. Weight information have to be saved and weighed on a licensed scale, whereas size information have to be measured in inches after which launched to qualify for file consideration, in line with CPW.
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Allee explains that his 18.25-inch black crappie weighed round 3 kilos 15 ounces on his hand scale, which might have been sufficient to interrupt the state’s weight file as nicely. (The earlier state size file for black crappie is a 16.25-inch fish caught in 2023, whereas the standing weight file is a 3.48-pound fish from 2017.) He says he measured the fish a number of instances earlier than releasing it, within the hopes that it will surpass the 4-pound mark.
Though Allee’s new state-record crappie hasn’t been introduced but, CPW information official Brandon White confirmed in an e-mail to Outside Life that “the black crappie that Eric Allee caught is the brand new state file by size for Colorado.”
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