Hello Crappie.com,
I really like your site.. I thought you would like to post my story.It's dear to me, I get teary eyed ever time i tell it. My son that netted thefish for me was killed soon after that trip. But I love telling it.also have a picture of the Crappie attachedA God sent Crappie.This is a true story about a Crappie that paid 10 grand.I have spent my life in a small northeast Texas town named Texarkana Texas. Iwas in the Brick business there for many years and had builta very nice office and showroom there. Things had gone very good for a fewyears, when the economy really got bad in the area. My family and I had puteverything into our business trying to hold on until times got better. Wellwe didn't make it. We had to turn my office and showroom back over to thebank.We moved our office to our home, where I was lucky enough to have room for ashowroom . This was a blow to me and my family, but we was making it work .One morning I was setting at my desk reading a Bass Magazine when I saw an adby Berkley on State record fish. Thinking it would be funny to my wife, Ifilled out the entry. As I was leaving home to go out to work, I put it onher desk and said, "Send this in. I'm going to probably get a State Recordfish soon". I really thought that was funny, but went on to work not thinkinganymore about it.Two weeks later me, my two sons, and friends went fishing for the weekend. Wewas bass fishing and me and my oldest son was fishing the same boat. It was aFriday and we had gotten to the lake about noon. There was a cabin and weall got our gear in the cabin and hurried to get started fishing. We caughtbass like mad. Some really good ones and I had a old stringer that we had putsome really good bass on. Late that afternoon I had ask my son how many basswe had, not wanting to get over the limit. We liked two having our limit, sowe fished on and had another fish to put on the stringer when we found outthe old stringer had broken and we had lost all our fish.My son was so mad he was $&%#@#@ up a storm. Then I told him, "Son son don'tdo that." Just think, it may be for a good reason. Gee! We may get a recordfish and if it had broken then, it would have been bad. So we fished on andstill had a good stringer before dark.Saturday morning... Back on the lake. We was doing good on bass again. At8:05 A.M. I got a good hit on a Berkley Blue Flake Worm. I set the hook andmy son ask if i needed a net. I didn't think I would. Even if I lost thisone, we were coughing lots of fish. Then the fish broke the water and I sawthe spots ... "Dang get the net son," I said. He netted the fish for me andwe all looked at it and I said, "Well, I'm going to mount that fish."So we went back to the cabin and my youngest son came in and saw the fish.We all thought "What a Crappie?." I put the Crappie in the freezer. About anhour passed. Some friends came in and had heard about the Crappie and askto see it. So I pulled it out of the freezer and we all was talking aboutit. The friend said," Hey, that could be a State Record.""Wow ! " It hit me like a ton of bricks...Wonder if my wife really did send in the entry to Berkley and I wonderedwhat the state record Crappie was.I went into cabin, called my wife, andasked, "You remember the Berkley entry I ask you to send in?" She said shedid. And then I just was hoping ."Did you really send it ?" I ask . Timepassed. "Yes" .Wow!Would you look up and see what the State Record Crappie is? She said,"I'll have to call you back. I don't know where the magazine is." We allwaited and soon she called. "3 .11," she said. Oh my ! We had weighed it ondeliers and it was really close. So off to Texarkana we went.We called a Game warden and he said to take it someplace, have the weightcertified, and he would meet us at a bait shop in Maud, Texas, which wasabout ten miles from Texarkana. The Crappie certified at 3.12 after going infreezer for an hour. The Game warden said the Crappie may have gone 4lbs. if ithadn't been in the freezer.I used the $10,000.00 to pay down on a new office.God sent that Crappie I, believe deep down in my heart.
Originally submitted to Crappie.com in 2004
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