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 document 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 title of the lake to keep away from added fishing stress there.) Using forward-facing sonar, he discovered what regarded like a crappie scorching spot within the lake and tossed out a man-made lure.
“It was late morning, and I’d already caught a 2.5-pound bass once I observed on my sonar three fish close to a deep sunken brush pile in 14 ft of water,” Allee tells Outside Life. “I figured they had 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 Tackle in Denver, and he says it’s the right setup for what he calls “hover rig” fishing — a finesse approach for vertically jigging gentle plastic lures.
“It’s a lethal tactic, nevertheless it takes persistence and focus for it to work,” Allee explains. “The fish didn’t take it instantly. I watched them on my Energetic Goal sonar for 2 minutes earlier than one hit. And I’m undecided 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 worrying battle due to the cooler water temps. Till, that’s, Allee obtained the fish close to the floor.
“I used to be nervous netting it once I noticed how huge it was, and thought that it may be a Colorado document,” he says. “After I measured it, and weighed it rigorously, 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 frequently 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 sport companies, Colorado Parks and Wildlife maintains fishing document books for each weight records and length records. Weight information should be saved and weighed on an authorized scale, whereas size information should be measured in inches after which launched to qualify for document consideration, in keeping 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 document as properly. (The earlier state size document for black crappie is a 16.25-inch fish caught in 2023, whereas the standing weight document 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 document by size for Colorado.”
The publish Kayak Fisherman Breaks Colorado Crappie Record Using Forward-Facing Sonar appeared first on Outdoor Life.
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