HomeCrappieFreak Fish Caught in THIS State

Freak Fish Caught in THIS State

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Kyle Tepper caught a freak crappie that looks like something from far southern Illinois or Mississippi, he got a chance to splash around the oddities of crappies in Illinois.

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

During shore fishing for crappie with Rick Hamann and Kyle Anderson at a lake in the Chain O’Lakes area on March 4, 2023 Tepper hooked into a freak crappie for northern Illinois.

“It is a very large crappie,” he mentioned. This one was 19 1/2 inches with a girth of 17 1/4 inches.

 

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

Tepper took it to his workplace, Triangle Sports & Marine in Antioch, where freak crappie weighed 3 1/2 pounds.

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

It wasn’t a state record, but it was a special one 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.”

My first encounter with Tepper was when he and Anderson, both freshmen, had Antioch in fourth place after Day 1 in the Illinois High School Association state finals for bass fishing at Carlyle Lake in 2018.

I remembered the wait when Povolish caught his big crappie when Tepper thought it was a hybrid. It was going to be an Illinois record, the question was which one. In spite of its appearance, it was a hybrid crappie that had been genetically tested by the Illinois Natural History Survey.

Mark Davis, a conservation biologist with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, stated “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 he 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.”

 

Sources: Chicagosuntimes

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