First Crappie (305)

We had a guy gathering here last Sunday afternoon. Guy gatherings are necessary when things are happening like Wedding showers the lady folk do before a wedding...That will most likely be another blog story in about 3 weeks...But for the guy gathering we decided to try fishing, after of course we had a cook out and a couple drinks, yes of course..
My son John attended and not long after the fishing began yelled "hey Dad I caught a Crappie"....To me it was pretty exciting as the last couple years I have tried to introduce Crappie to the pond and did not know if any of them had survived. But as you can see in the pictures here at least this one not only survived but looks to be very vigorous and healthy as Crappie's go...
I remember my brother in law Ralph Hengst used to refer to them a "paper mouths". And if you look at the mouth of a Crappie it does look to be very transparent. I have very fond memories of catching them with him and my son at a lake near Cloverdale Indiana. Cloverdale now that is a name for an Indiana town if ever you heard one, or needed one. But moving on we did catch a lot of Crappie there on one occasion I remember meeting Ralph there and we fished all day. The limit was 25 each so we caught at least 75 maybe closer to 100 and my son and I stayed all night in the boat but sent the fish home with Ralph to clean. Then the next day we caught maybe 75 more by mid shortly afternoon and headed for home to clean them....It was fun, sleeping in the boat was painful but all in all a good time.
Back to the Crappie caught here we released him as I just don't know how many have made it and before I keep any I guess I would like to see evidence of them spauning and that would be some real small ones getting caught I guess...But hopefully all of this will happen. At least there is hope which makes for excitement for this blogger....Next post will no doubt be the July 4th celebration held this year on July 3rd...Gonna have campers here, good eats and maybe fire crackers and sparklers...