[fishingtheusaandcanada] Charlotte Observer 03-08-2008 Charlotte angler on verge of N.C. record

 

 http://www.charlotte.com/outdoors/story/527114.html

 

CURRENT MARK IS 1 POUND, 13 OUNCES
Charlotte angler on verge of N.C. record
He hooks white crappie of 3 pounds, 4 ounces
JACK HORAN
Special Correspondent
 

Fishing for bass in a private lake off Albemarle Road, James Brown of Charlotte on Wednesday hooked a huge white crappie, a panfish that was more than a pan could hold.

 

The crappie measured 18 1/2 inches long and weighed 3 pounds, 4 ounces, nearly twice the weight of the state record fish from Lake Norman.

 

Brown on Friday said he's submitting paperwork to get the fish certified as a new record.

 

"It's a monster," he said.

 

Troy Thompson, an N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission biologist who examined it Thursday, verified it was a white crappie rather than its more common and look-alike cousin, the black crappie.

 

Thompson said white crappie have five or six dorsal spines while black crappie have seven or eight. Brown's fish had six.

 

The existing record white crappie of 1 pound, 13 ounces was caught Dec. 9 in Norman by Brian "Buck" Stikeleather of Stony Point.

 

The record black crappie weighed 4 pounds, 15 ounces.

 

Thompson said only last week he certified a 1-pound, 15-ounce white crappie caught in Stanly County. And Brown's fish beat a crappie recently caught near Raleigh by 2 ounces. The world record is 5 pounds, 3 ounces, caught in 1957 in Mississippi.

 

"I'm a long-time crappie fisherman," Brown said. "And when the wildlife commission decided to add a classification for white crappie, I told myself I was going to target that species and set the record. I'm really tickled to have done it."

 

Brown, fishing with Lewis Johnson of Charlotte, caught the crappie on a live minnow in Waverly Swim and Tennis Club's lake on Albemarle Road. It was weighed on certified scales at Perry's Market on Wilgrove-Mint Hill Road.

 

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Special correspondent Tom Higgins contributed

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