Roughly six months after they licensed Bobby Parkhurst’s white crappie as a brand new state file, recreation wardens got here to his dwelling and took the fish from his freezer
An in depth-up view of the crappie that was confirmed as a Kansas state file after which faraway from the file guide. {Photograph} courtesy KDWP
It took 60 years for somebody to interrupt the Kansas state file for white crappie, and solely six months for that file to be taken away. Now, the angler who caught the alleged state-record fish is crying foul.
“I caught that fish legally and actually,” Bobby Parkhurst wrote in a Facebook post Saturday, claiming that wildlife officers got here to his home “unlawfully” to take his fish after the Kansas Division of Wildlife and Parks had already licensed it as a brand new state file. He stated the seizure of his fish by state recreation wardens amounted to “slander.”
A KDWP spokesperson has since denied that the search of Parkhurst’s dwelling was illegal and says that “[he] willingly let officers inside his dwelling to view and acquire the fish.”
The state-record saga involving Parkhurst and the Kansas Division of Wildlife and Parks started on March 5, 2023, when Parkhurst caught a slab white crappie from a small public reservoir close to Manhattan. He saved the crappie and submitted it for file consideration with KDWP, which required him to weigh and measure the fish in entrance of an company official. KDWP’s assistant director of fisheries John Reinke inspected the fish and confirmed the crappie’s weight of 4.07 kilos, in keeping with the company’s press release from April. This meant the fish was simply sufficiently big to edge out the earlier state file for white crappie, which had stood since 1964 at 4.02 kilos.
As Outdoor Life reported in the spring, KDWP licensed Parkhurst’s 4.07-pound crappie as a brand new state file on April 4, 2023, after the necessary 30-day ready interval was full. Kansas requires all potential file fish to endure this ready interval earlier than any data are declared official.
“As fisheries biologists, we get the possibility to see a whole lot of massive fish however this one is actually 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 file listing.”
Later that month, nevertheless, company officers got purpose to imagine that Parkhurst’s fish wasn’t so deserving of the state file, in any case. They acquired a tip and launched an investigation into the fish, in keeping with native NBC affiliate KSNT, which broke the information Saturday after an area reporter observed that Parkhurst was now not within the state’s fishing data guide. Parkhurst advised the native information outlet that recreation wardens got here to his dwelling on April 20, 2023 and seized the crappie from his freezer.
Months later, KDWP up to date its April 4 press launch on Nov. 14, saying Parkhurst’s crappie “couldn’t be confirmed” and that the earlier crappie file set in 1964 nonetheless stands. KDWP spokesperson Nadia Marji confirmed in an e mail to Out of doors Life on Monday that Parkhurst’s crappie was formally faraway from the file guide on Nov. 14. Marji stated that after seizing Parkhurst’s crappie in April, officers re-examined the fish and located that Parkhurst’s file software “was not true and proper.”
“The applying alleged the fish weighed 4.07 kilos,” Marji defined. “Upon re-examination, this might not be replicated [or] verified by the Division.”
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Marji declined to offer any extra details about the mix-up for the reason that company’s case towards Parkhurst remains to be lively. She confirmed that the case has been submitted to the native county legal professional’s workplace for assessment. Parkhurst didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark, however he advised KSNT on Saturday that he needs his state file restored and his fish returned.
“I did it the entire method they wished me to do it,” Parkhurst stated. “I went by the procedures, I wrote down what I caught it on. I did all the things they wished me to do by the guide. I did all the things I used to be imagined to do.”
