Saturday afternoon I was able to get out and fish with my Unlce Tom, which I haven’t done in several years. He had a new place he thought we should try out. One of Tom’s fish was this nice 14 1/4" crappie, a great catch.
Tom said he had caught a few here recently, so I outfitted us both with some crappie jigs. Sure enough, they were present. This one went 14 1/2".
Tom registered another nice catch and proved that there are indeed smallies in this water. This one went nearly 16", not a bad fish in Nebraska. The key was to let the jigs fall, and let them swim back to you in the process. It seemed the deeper you could get them to fall, the better.
As I tried letting the jigs fall a little deeper yet, without getting caught in the moss and rocks, I felt a thump like no other. This was a small bass, I figured, since I was using my light crappie rod. As the fish came up and flashed, I was amazed. This is the biggest crappie I’ve ever caught, and it went 16 1/4". In the madness, I forgot to weigh her, but I’m sure she was very close to 3lbs, maybe even breaking that barrier. The fish was released in great shape, and I hope to see her again.
It’s been nice lately, even if we have had a lot of rain. It obviously hasn’t deterred these fish from getting some camera time!
Nice fish, Brian!! 16.25″ slab…
Very nice fish.
Nice fish
Massive crappie Brian!
Those are some dandy crappie B! Congrats on the PB.
Thanks guys! After all the rain we had, I was kinda surprised to see the crappie out away from cover so much. But they are clearly spawning right now, so I imagine not a lot is going to slow em down. Can’t wait to hit it again this week!
Uncle Tom, It’s been a while. I was wondering if you have any more room for another long lost nephew
16+ inches, that’s a beast
Congratulations
Ron
Heck, you’re welcome anytime down this way, Ron. You know that!!
Very nicely done!!!
That last crappie is an awesome slab.
Congrats!
No doubt. Next questions… how often do you get ice on that body of water?
HOLY COW! Brian! That crappie was a pig! Way to go.
Daryl B.
Thanks guys! I couldn’t believe it when I saw it come up the first time. After seeing it wasn’t well hooked, I strongly considered jumping in and tackling it…but it worked out for the best.
You know, James, you’re not the first person to ask that, actually! I’ve only had access to it for a week now, so I’ll be keeping an eye on it this winter and see what it offers.
Also, we returned to the area a few days ago, and sure enough, they moved out of the deep water to nicer spawning habitat. We ended up catching quite a few right outside of some cat tails and willows, some in as little as 14-20″ of water. You could actually watch them come up and hammer the jig. Some of them were really dark, a good indication that they were spawning hard. Had a few go 12″, but lots of little males of course. Still a good way to spend a few extra hours.
Great looking slabs! Were you guys getting a mix of blacks and whites? One of the pictures looks like a white crappie but I can’t quite tell.
These are 99% whites. A lot of people confuse whites with blacks during the spawn as the males will turn a darker color, sometimes almost purple, when they’re spawning. But if you count the number of main dorsal fins, you’ll see they are whites. Whites have 5 or 6 main fins (towards the front of the fin), and blacks have a couple more, if I rememeber correctly.
They are going well right now!