A Pennsylvania angler caught a near-record crappie Friday just hours after receiving his first COVID-19 vaccination shot.
So for Dan Wielobob, it was a wonderful day in at least two respects.
The monstrous white crappie, caught through the ice at Lake Wilhelm, measured 20 inches and weighed 4.02 pounds, falling less than 3 ounces shy of the state record.
Wielobob told Darl Black of the Erie Times-News that the fish was so large as it swam past the hole that he thought he had hooked a walleye.
Then, when the fish began to swim upward with its mouth open, Wielobob thought it was a largemouth bass, so he “lipped it,” using his thumb and forefinger, and flopped it onto the ice.
“Not something I would have done if it were a walleye,” he told Black.
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Wielobob said the crappie was the largest he has caught in more than 60 years of fishing.
For the sake of comparison, the all-tackle world record stands at 5 pounds, 3 ounces. That mark, set in Mississippi, was established in 1957 and might never be broken.
Wielobob caught the giant crappie – and 19 smaller crappies – using two-pound-test line and a small tungsten jig.
Earlier on Friday, he and his wife had driven to a clinic in Cortland, Ohio, to receive their first vaccination shots.
–Images courtesy of Darl Black / Erie Times News
