Crappie on Fly

We call them speckled perch in Florida. By any name, they're a blast on fly. They're easy to catch -- if you can find them.

I fish for them mainly at Lake Manatee, 20 miles northeast of my home in Sarasota, Fla.

I catch most of them on a No. 12 nymph under a strike indicator. I also catch a few on my Myakka Minnow.

Specks at Lake Manatee are thick and strong. We don't catch many small ones on the lake.

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...psyosrnni1.jpg

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...psox1j61ba.jpg

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...psis6whodu.jpg

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ps33s2cjys.jpg

With frozen water here I am envious. Nice fish.

Rick

Are they as good eatin' there as they are here? Nice fish.

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Originally Posted by lastchance

Are they as good eatin' there as they are here? Nice fish.

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Don't know how good they are where you're at, but they're pretty good here.

Nice slabs you have there, best eating freshwater fish In my opinion.

Warms the heart to see your fishing reports. Here in Kentucky it's still winter.

Oh boy! Those are nice sized Crappies which have become harder to find here in Canada, because more folks are fishing them now. So much so that there are now strict catch & keep limits on them. Years ago before they became well known in my rural area, I would release those size ones because I could almost always catch many twice that size. Only kept a few for a nice meal at times, but other anglers unfortunately spoiled it all with their greed. These days I have to work much harder to locate the big fish, but no matter what the size, they are still great fish to play with. Scrappy Crappy is what some locals call them here and they sure are my number 1 fish for the dinner table.