West Virginia 3.6 pound Crappie or Spec as we call them

[Shootist Comitatus]

New state record...


Jerry Porter and pals Ron and Rodney Shelton were having a banner morning of spring-spawning crappie action on 1,000-acre East Lynn Lake on May 6. It was only 9 a.m. when Porter hooked a fish bigger than the others.

“The crappies were bedding and hit everything we cast to them around a fallen oak tree,” Jerry Porter, 50, tells Outdoor Life. “Every cast we hooked a fish. Then I stuck one that was different — bigger than all the others, and I panicked.”

Porter yelled for help and a buddy grabbed a net and scooped the fish into the 17-foot Bass Tracker boat, which belongs to Porter’s son.