Oh, Carp! That's Not a Crappie!

[JigRigPreacher]

My college professor daughter asked me to take her fishing during her spring break, so we made it a date this past Thursday to snag a few spawning crappie from the flooded grass at our local lake. While we were fishing my daughter asked me what was making all that commotion in the grass beds every now and then. I explained to her that it was large carp feeding. She asked me what it was they were eating, and I told her I wasn't exactly sure. I knew carp were omnivorous so I told her it could have been any number of things (aquatic insects, fish eggs, floating vegetation, etc...).

After catching about half a limit of crappie the bite begin to slow down considerably and the fish starting just pulling down the skirts/bodies of our jigs. I dug around in my tackle and found a tiny pink/white Stinger and put it on smallest jig head I could find. Sure enough, I began connecting with some slabs once again. Just as we were approaching our limit of fish it began to thunder in the distance, and after a quick radar check I told her we probably should be wrapping things up. As we were headed out I decided to quickly try one last spot where I typically found fewer but larger fish. As soon as my jig went under water I felt a thump and set the hook. "Oh, crap...this isn't a crappie!" I exclaimed as my rod bent in half and I felt like I had hooked the Loch Ness Monster. My daughter kept shouting, "It's about to break your pole! How is your line not breaking?!" Mind you, I was fishing with an old 10' ultralight jig pole with 6 lb test line with no reel (just line holder), so I had no drag to work with. In my mind I began to suspect a large catfish because of the extreme weight and horsepower on the end of the line. We were both in disbelief that the fish was still on after a couple of minutes. Of course, all we crappie fisherman know that if this had been a 3 lb crappie, the line would have broke, the pole would have snapped, the tiny hook would have straightened or pulled out, the fish would have wrapped the nearest limb or vegetation clump, and I would have had another sad story about "the one that got away". BUT NO... somehow after the large fish made several attempts to get to the grass, to wrap the outboard and trolling motor, and to pull me out of the boat I managed to bring it close enough so my daughter could attempt to get a net under it. It took about 4 or 5 netting attempts (& subsequent runs) before she was finally able to get the net under the golden beast... An 18.5 lb. CARP! My daughter immediately quipped, "So, now we know what they like to eat!"

Well, this is definitely my PB for fish weight on ultralight tackle. My buddies have renamed me Carp King instead of Crappie Yoda...