The curiosities of a freak crappie caught in northern Illinois

Kyle Tepper knew.

“As soon as I set the hook, I told my buddy, ‘Grab the net, this is not a bass,’” he said.

Tepper was shore fishing for crappie with Rick Hamann and Kyle Anderson at a lake in the Chain O’Lakes area on March 4 when he hooked into a freak crappie for northern Illinois on a pearl Z-Man Shad FryZ.

“It is a very large crappie,” he understated.

This one was 19 1/2 inches with a girth of 17 1/4 inches.

“As soon as the 19 was landed and in the net, the bobber went down on a 17 1/2,” he said. “We probably caught 10 over 14 inches over that day and another 60.”

Provided

Even among those, this was a freak, more like something from Mississippi. Tepper took it to his workplace, Triangle Sports & Marine in Antioch, where weighed 3 1/2 pounds.

The Illinois crappie records are remarkably similar in weight: hybrid (4 pounds, 8.8 ounces, caught by Ryan Povolish, March 28, 2017, Kinkaid Lake); black (4-8, John Hampton, May 15, 1976, Rend Lake); and white (4-7, Kevin Dennis, April 8, 1973, Morgan County farm pond.)

Tepper’s was not a state record, but special for northern Illinois.

“Hybrid, I can say, almost for certain,” Tepper said. “It had the genetics of white crappie but looks like a black crappie from all the research I’ve done.”

Tepper is young, but an experienced, multi-species angler. I met him when he and Anderson, both freshmen, had Antioch in third place at the Illinois High School Association state finals for bass fishing after Day 1 in 2018 at Carlyle Lake. They finished fourth.

Tepper thinking his big crappie was a hybrid made me remember the wait when Povolish caught his crappie. It was going to be an Illinois record, the question was which one. It looked like a black crappie, but genetic testing from fin clips by the Illinois Natural History Survey proved it a hybrid crappie.

According to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Mark Davis, a conservation biologist with the INHS, noted. “The genetics show that the mother of the record fish was a black crappie, while the father was either a white or a hybrid crappie.”

So I messaged Kevin Irons, Illinois’ assistant fisheries chief.

“There certainly are different levels of hybrids, just as you describe, F1, F2…Fx,” he responded. “Sometimes it looks like a hybrid, and sometimes not, depends on those things. I would not assume unless some feature is `off.’ A fin clip and genetics is the only way for sure. While hybrid vigor is a thing, I would not assume in these cases.

“[Tepper’s is a ] wonderful fish regardless!”

And Tepper treated it that way, saying, “I might do a replica. I let him go. I have a video of it.”

Wild things

While I picked night crawlers and earthworms in falling slush Friday on my morning ramble with Lady, I noticed many robins on the wet road. They had adapted and were taking easy pickings. Not sure if picking worms in traffic is a good adaptation.

Stray cast

Are honchos at Major League Fishing or B.A.S.S. looking at the World Baseball Classic and brainstorming?