Earlier this month an angler in Kansas railed towards regulation enforcement officers for seizing his 2023 state-record crappie, claiming that he “caught the fish legally and truthfully.” Now particulars of the Kansas Division of Wildlife and Parks investigation obtained by Out of doors Life on Friday reveal that the angler, Bobby Parkhurst, seems to have tried to cheat his manner into the document e-book.
The state-record saga started on March 5, 2023, when Parkhurst caught a slab white crappie from a small public reservoir close to Manhattan. An announcement from KDWP particulars how Parkhurst first weighed his fish at one bait store the place it fell wanting breaking the state document. Parkhurst then apparently stuffed the fish with ball bearings earlier than visiting one other licensed scale to acquire the heavier weight of 4.07 kilos that originally certified it as a state document. Investigators proved this by X-raying the crappie after seizing it from Parkhurst’s house in April 2023.
“When workers used a handheld metallic detector to scan the fish, the gadget detected the presence of metallic,” KDWP public data officer Nadia Marji wrote in an electronic mail to Out of doors Life. “Wardens then took the fish to the Topeka Zoo for x-ray examination the place it was revealed that two metal ball bearings had been contained in the crappie.”
Marji confirms that wildlife officers started investigating Parkhurst on April 9, simply 5 days after the company licensed Parkhurst’s white crappie as a brand new state document with a weight of 4.07 kilos. Investigators had been appearing on a tip from a bait store proprietor who says he weighed Parkhurst’s crappie on March 5.
“I do not forget that day prefer it was yesterday,” says the bait store proprietor, who spoke with Out of doors Life on the situation of anonymity. “If it was a state document, I might have taken an image of it. Usually when that occurs, I’ve to fill out paperwork, measure the fish and verify the burden, and I even have to offer the [angler] the serial quantity off my scale. That was not finished on this fish.”
None of these items had been finished as a result of, as KDWP confirms, Parkhurst’s crappie weighed simply 3.73 kilos on the bait store proprietor’s licensed scale. For this reason the store proprietor was so suspicious when, in early April, he noticed that the very same fish had been declared a brand new Kansas state document crappie with a licensed weight of 4.07 kilos.
“Now, that’s a discrepancy,” the store proprietor says.
KDWP’s assistant director of fisheries John Reinke inspected the fish after the second weighing. After the obligatory 30-day ready interval was full, the agency made Parkhurst’s record official on April 4. The crappie edged out the earlier document of 4.02 kilos that had stood since 1964.
“As fisheries biologists, we get the possibility to see loads of massive fish however this one is definitely for the books,” Reinke stated of Parkhurst’s record-breaking crappie on the time. “This crappie measured in at 18 inches lengthy and 14 inches in girth, so it actually deserves a spot on the state document checklist.”
Someday round or earlier than April 20, Parkhurst told reporters earlier this month, recreation wardens got here to his house and seized the crappie from his freezer.
Parkhurst claimed in a Facebook post that they got here to his home “unlawfully,” and that the seizure of his fish amounted to “slander.” The angler additionally demanded that KDWP officers return his fish to him. (Parkhurst didn’t reply to repeated requests for remark.)
Marji denies that the search of Pakhurst’s house was illegal, saying “[he] willingly let officers inside his house to view and acquire the fish.”
The company’s assertion additionally makes it clear that Parkhurst “voluntarily introduced his fish for re-examination.” And when officers re-examined the fish, the numbers didn’t fairly add up. (Whenever you’re coping with a fish that averages round 2 to three kilos, .34 kilos is critical.) Investigators first inspected the 2 licensed scales the place Parkhurst weighed the fish, though KDWP didn’t present the identify of the second location the place the fish was weighed.
“Wildlife and Parks introduced the Division of Ag in, and so they really checked my scale,” says the bait store proprietor who tipped off the company in April. “It got here up excellent.”
On Nov. 14, KDWP up to date its press launch saying Parkhurst’s crappie “couldn’t be confirmed” and that the earlier white crappie document set in 1964 nonetheless stands.
“I weigh lots of people’s fish, so after they carry them right here, I do my half,” says the bait store proprietor. “However I don’t lie for no person.”
KDWP’s investigation concluded that the crappie had been tampered with within the time between when Parkhurst weighed it on the bait store and when he had it re-weighed at a second location throughout the state.
“Because of this,” the company’s emailed assertion reads, “the Division nullified the angler’s catch as a state document, reinstated the earlier document (Miller, 1964) and have since made the fish out there for return to the angler.”
Marji says that Parkhurst plans to reclaim his crappie from the company Friday. She additionally confirms that though KDWP submitted its case towards Parkhurst to the native county lawyer’s workplace, the lawyer has declined to prosecute the angler.
