Ball bearings somehow find their way into the belly of that state record Kansas crappie!

 By Bill Prater

Alert Loveland Fishing Club Reader Walt Graul has passed along fascinating news from our neighboring state of Kansas: it seems that last year's new state record crappie has been abruptly yanked from the record books. 

Last year an 18-inch white crappie was caught with a minnow in an eastern Kansas reservoir. It was subsequently officially weighed in at 4.07 pounds, shattering an old record set way back in 1964. But an anonymous tipster later reported that he or she saw the same fish being weighed in earlier at 3.73.  After an investigation, Kansas Parks and Wildlife staff seized the crappie and used a hand-held metal detector to scan its insides., and later did the same thing with an x-ray. This (steel bearings) is what they saw in its belly:

This week Outdoor Life also weighed in, noting the previous Kansas record has been reinstated. The angler with the new fish, who had apparently kept his prize in the freezer, has denied all wrongdoing. He was quoted by Outdoor Life as saying he caught the fish legally, and that Parks and Wildlife had illegally come to his home and taken the fish away for that damning x-ray. A Parks and Wildlife spokesperson responded that its actions were so legal. 

The discovery of steel weights in the belly of the beast reminds us of a similar case in 2022 where two men were accused of stuffing lead into their winning walleye at an Ohio fishing tournament. A lot of prize money was involved in that case. Those folks got fined, lost the right to a fishing license, and had their boat taken away. There's no word on possible repercussions in the Kansas situation; the angler reportedly even got his fish back; he just lost bragging rights to the state record. 

If you're as fascinated by all this as I am, here is a link to the complete Outdoor Life article: https://www.outdoorlife.com/fishing/kansas-record-crappie-removed/

In unrelated but also interesting news, the new Colorado state record for a BLACK crappie was set on Nov. 12 of last year, an 18.25-inch fish that was carefully measured and unofficially weighed in at 3 pounds 15 ounces. It's the new "state record by length." Colorado bases its Master Angler program on either length or weight, something Kansas might want to consider. Short of still allowing someone to mash a prize fish flat to squeeze out an extra inch or so to make it legal to keep and eat, it sure sounds like a way to encourage ethical angler behavior.

Anyway, here is something else I admire about Colorado's new record holder, kayak angler Eric Allee. Eric and fishing buddies admired his prize, measured it and took lots of pictures - and then he gently released it back into the water to fight (and maybe get measured again) another day. I'm betting the Kansas fellow wishes he'd done the same. 

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