Fishing with Capt. George Tunison | The thrill of crappie fishing never gets old

If you and your seasoned crew are going offshore this weekend in your triple 400 horsepower 45-footer, fully equipped with NASA grade electronics for some out-to-the-horizon grouper and snapper bottom fishing, or plying the local inshore shallows in your new high tech, high dollar carbon fiber advanced poling skiff, equipped with all the latest and greatest overpriced gear and now consider yourself to be an advanced and highly skilled angler, there’s a good chance many of you started your highly advanced fishing careers with a bucket of minnows catching crappies in a local farm pond or stream.

It’s crappie season at local lakes, ponds, streams and rivers throughout Florida, along with biting bluegills and a number of interesting invasive South American species although, if the weather doesn’t soon change, it may be an ice fishing outing. Soon largemouth bass will begin their nest digging and spawning duties in these same waters throughout the state.

While catching largemouth bass is the most popular angling pastime in America, crappies are the most popular pan fish target, and like bass fishing, big money tournaments have become popular across the country, such as the Crappie USA Megabucks Events with guaranteed $20,000 payouts.

Twenty thousand dollar crappie tournaments for crappies? That’s nothing! How about the 2024 Crappie Expo and Invitational tourney held at Table Rock Lake in Branson, Missouri? A $5,000 entry fee per boat with a $500,000 payout featuring the world’s largest after-tournament fish fry. Bass fishing has its superstars like Kevin Van Damn, but the name associated with the king of crappie fishing is Wally Marshall.

Across the country, crappie anglers fish for both black (pomoxis nigromaculatus) and white (pomoxis annularis) crappies with hybrids occurring in many lakes. This is ultra-lite fishing at its finest with many anglers relying on tiny 1/16-ounce jigs to tempt fish away from submerged brush piles and other woody structure they love to inhabit. The most common set-up for non-tournament fun and food anglers is the traditional bobber rig with a lively 2-inch to 3-inch bullhead hooked minnow dancing down below, which is hard for any hungry crappie to resist, and white flakey sweet tasting fillets make great table fare.

Crappies are definitely schooling fish and once found can be caught in good numbers unless you snag or disturb their home cover driving them away or off their feed.

Try and break the world black crappie record weighing in at 5 pounds, 7 ounces caught in 2018, or go for the much easier Florida state record of 3.38 pounds. Breaking the white crappie record is a much harder task as this Mississippi fish weighed 5 pounds, 3 ounces, a record that’s stood the test of time caught way back in 1957.

In the 1970s I was standing next to an acquaintance named Marvin Billips just shooting the breeze while catching typical 1-pound crappies in a small Delaware stream when his bobber suddenly disappeared. A 4-pound, 9-ounce crappie liked the look of his minnow and ate the last meal of its life becoming the current and still standing state record.

Crappies or “specks” do taste good and if you decide to have a tasty pan fish fry, keep in mind you can keep 25 per angler of any size except in certain bodies of water like Lake O and others that require a 10-inch or in other lakes a 12-inch length limit. Check the FWC website before picking your lake to stay within the law.

Get back to your roots and take the kids crappie fishing. It will bring back wonderful memories for you as well. Lake O crappie fishing is at its peak right now and many guides will be glad to put you on the fish.

As old as I’ve become I still get child-like excited when that bobber starts to dance then suddenly disappears. Seems I’m hooked for life!

Capt. George Tunison is a Cape Coral resident fishing guide. You can contact him at 239-579-0461 or via email at captgeorget3@aol.com.