A huge 3-pound, 11-ounce crappie caught from Georgia’s Coosa River on March 19 is one of the largest to come from the Peach State in more than 20 years.
The Georgia Wildlife Resources Division shared photos of James King’s huge slab on Facebook with a post that said it’s the largest black crappie some of the state’s fisheries biologists have seen in their entire careers. It is the largest crappie submitted for a Georgia angler award in more than 20 years.
The Georgia state record for crappie is a tie. Two fish caught in the 1970s both weighed 4 pounds, 4 ounces. The first was caught in June 1971 by Shirley Lavender, and it was said to come from Acree’s Lake. A quick Internet search showed no results for Acree’s Lake. There is, however, a small south Georgia community named Acree with several small lakes around it.
The second state record was caught by Steve Cheek from Lake Spivey in 1975. Spivey is a 600-acre private lake south of Atlanta in Clayton County and Henry County.
The Coosa River, where King caught his nearly 4-pounder, forms at the confluence of the Oostanaula and Etowah rivers in Rome, Ga. It then flows into Alabama at Weiss Lake, which is a renowned crappie fishery.
The IGFA world record for black crappie weighed 5 pounds, 7 ounces. It was caught in May 2018 from a private pond in Tennessee by Lionel Ferguson.
For more information, go to https://georgiawildlife.com/