Big Crappie. Wow.

Dont know the guy but this is cool.

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That thing is a hog!! Looks like he kept it good for him I’m sure there’s a ton of people jealous that are whining about him keeping it!

That’s a wallhanger!!

Delete

Fish of a lifetime! Congrats to that guy. I wonder how long it would have lived had he released it. That thing has to be a decade old.

I would have a replica made personally. But a crappie that HUGE is just fine to keep for a mount. To catch that in the metro is crazy.

I hope that old girl wasn’t killed for the sake of toting the corpse around, take twittergram selfie pictures like my 15 year-old daughter, while plopping the suffocating animal on an old beer box for scale…

I would love for that impressive, old specimen to go out with some peace and dignity…..or, you know, lay the thousands of eggs with apparently solid genetics in just a few weeks.

Killing fish like that is like cutting down a giant redwood to make a s’more.

I doubt that fish would have lived much longer. It will live on and be admired for many years mounted on this dudes wall.

skfishing16 wrote:

I doubt that fish would have lived much longer. It will live on and be admired for many years mounted on this dudes wall.

Agreed.

I release 99.9% of my big fish, but an 18″ crappie isn’t going to live forever. I’d have probably released it, but have no issue with a person keeping it. Wonder what it weighed?

Wow , what a fish . Congrats.

What a tank. Absolutely impressive

18″ crappie, holy cow. Can’t imagine the reaction. It’s dark, you set the hook and feel that weight you’re automatically thinking walleye most likely, probably dogged the whole way up then have that mouth come up the hole, dude probably shat his pants….I would’ve. Great catch.

Is this the same one from Waconia last week? There is a Youtube also showing that on the tape. Last year also a 19inch came out of the same lake.
Keep or let go have no problem what the person did nothing wrong with either decision.

This awesome crappie was caught but a buddy of mine who doesn’t fish a ton. He contacted me (post keeping the fish) as he wanted to know where to do to get it mounted. He was told if he kept it a replica mold could made for future crappies to be replicated.

This is true and I got him in touch with Jim from ReelTrophyFish who offers free mounts for fish over a certain size.

I drove to Austen’s house just because I wanted to see this fish and I asked him if we could do a little video of the story and then weigh and measure the fish. He did not go seeking to parade this around town. I came to him and asked if I could cover the story.

My crappie jealousy was on full alert and it was very cool to hold and see a fish on that size in person. It must feel 10 times as awesome to catch!

If anyone has any q’s, besides where it was caught I would love to try to answer them.

I will post the link to the video in the next post. Sorry to some of you forum guys but its a vid on Facebook you should be able to view it still though.

Video of story, tape, and weight:
https://www.facebook.com/IMnFishing/videos/781659951972355/

congrats to ur bud that is a great fish!!!

That is a huge fish. I don’t really fault a guy for keeping a fish like that. It most likely didn’t have much time left. Cool that he is actually helping out by getting molds made of it.

BTW, was this the night there was all the law enforcement activity on the lake? I saw some pictures sent from a relative where there were multiple cops on the lake with flashing lights.

It was caught late Sat night into Sunday morning at 1230am. I am not sure, he didn’t say anything about that.

It wasn’t that late, early evening on Saturday.

Hoyt4 ————–>

Really, dude?

W-H-O-A! That is a monster. Kudos!

A true giant. The ruler seem a bit off starting at ~1″ but still a giant…

When I went to see the fish and got a good closed mouth measurement it came in at 17.75″

I had heard 3.24 pounds. Unless we are looking at two different fish!

AWESOME FISH. are thoughts it for sure was really old or do some freak fish have really fast freakish growth rates?

That is insane,what a beast.

That’s a hog crappie. I had my 8 year old grandson out yesterday afternoon and he caught an 18 inch crappie that weighed 3lbs 2.8 oz. The neat thing was he watched it bite on the camera. This was in a southern Mn lake on a #4 chubby darter. I am having it mounted for him. Congrats on your monster crappie. They are once in a lifetime. I will post a picture only if its ok with the op of this post.

Wow, I guess I’m more surprised to see that someone else on this website actually has an instagram. Great place to see all the big fish everyone else seems to have no problems catching

A fishing partner of a friend of mine caught this one. It was north of Duluth somewhere.

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