I used to fish for them a lot here in CT. They were fun in the summer with a fly rod and popper. We fished this one pond called Powers Lake and it had decent crappie fishing in it. I don't think I ever ate one. Just like catching them but released them. I really enjoy fresh water fishing but never ate that many of them. Salt water fish caught my attention for food fish. Mostly flounder, codfish, Yellow fin, Swords when we could find them and smelt in the winter time. Most of my fresh water fishing was flyrod in summer and ice fishing in winter for perch and pickerel. The big pickerel were good eating but boney. Caught a lot of large mouth bass in summer also with spoons on spinning rod that were really fun to catch. Usually for them we used the red daredevils.... Biggest one I caught was 8lbs 4 oz in the reservoir. I had it mounted but no longer have it here. My son George has it as his place with his fish. They started a Walleye program at his lake about 5 years ago to control the perch and they are starting to get good size now. He says they really taste great, but I have not tried them yet. Perhaps this is the summer for it with him and my grandson. I have him my fresh water boat as he has a dock right at his house. Funny, I have bought a fishing license since I was age 16 here in CT. When I turned 65, they gave me a free lifetime one and I have not used it yet. Your crappie fish, got my interest up again, and fishing starts here in April.
Thanks for post.
George-CT
UPDATE.... Was just thinking about the crappie again. I took a fellow Ironworker that was working up this way years back crappie fishing. He was from Tenn. After we caught one, he tied a short piece of mono on it throught the fin and a bobber. He let it swim around with it. I asked him why. He said if they like our crappie in Tenn, they are school fish and will go back to the rest of them and we can really have a ball. And it worked..... He said where he came from that was a poor mans electronic fish detector. I had a Hummingbird one on the boat, we never even turned it on. Fact I still have it. It was one of the first ones out then like it with Lcd and ran on 6 volt lantern batteries. Still works..As my son tried it out last year with his son. I was up to Cabla;s about 4 weeks ago and they have abig fresh water tank there for fish and they were giving a demo on a underwater camera. It was pretty neat and thought that would be fun to mess around with in the water....