Murphy Royer has been fishing for big crappie a long time, but he was beginning to think he would never catch a record book fish.
Admittedly, both white and black crappie categories are competitive categories, but still….
Then lightning struck: On Nov. 15, Royer was fishing in Henderson Lake near his home when a 3.055-pound black crappie inhaled his hand-tied jig.
“I was shocked. I kissed it,” the angler admitted. “I knew it was a 3-pounder. I’ve been fishing 40 years and hoped to catch a 3-pounder before I died.”
He knew it would take a 3-pound fish to make the books, and it did. Royer’s beast lodged in 10th place on the all-time Louisiana Fishing Records.
It was one of 44 crappies he and his fishing partner caught that day.
“I was fishing a cypress tree that I had been catching fish from” he explained. “I dropped my jig and got several little pecks. I thought it was a goggle-eye. That happened three days in a row in the exact same spot.
“On the last day, I set the hook on a peck and had the fish. He didn’t fight at all — just came right up. It felt like dead weight. At first I thought it might be a carp. They do that sometimes. I’ve caught almost everything on a jig.
Then I saw it was a crappie.
“When my partner netted the fish for me, the hook just fell out of its mouth. It didn’t even flop,” Royer said. “It was like it was on its last legs — the way it barely pecked the hook and the way it fought. It makes you wonder.”
Louisiana’s state fish records are maintained by the Louisiana Outdoor Writers Association, and may be viewed on their website.