That’s a million dollar crappie right there.
Little did Springfield, Missouri resident Holly Hadden know that moving into her new property would lead to a once in a lifetime catch.
Back on October 3rd, Hadden decided to go down to the couple-acre fishing pond on the new property with her family, for a fun day of bobber fishing with worms, according to The Kansas City Star.
She told McClatchy News:
“I really didn’t know much about this pond. We were just fishing it to kind of see what was in it.”
As she was enjoying a day of spending time with the family, her brother noticed that her bobber was gone:
“I wasn’t even paying attention. I was talking to my brother who’s just recently home from the Marines, and he said, ‘Hey sis, your bob’s gone.”
She looked down to find a yellow-colored fish, that she first thought was a perch.
However, once she took a closer look, she knew she had something wild on her hands:
“It had the mouth and fins of a crappie.”
That’s when it hit her…
She reeled in a rare golden crappie, which the Missouri Department of Conservation confirmed in a Facebook post on October 5th.
The department noted that crappies are most commonly black and white, but this specific crappie had a genetic condition called xanthochromism, causing it to have a much higher amount of yellow pigment.
Haddan continued:
“I was very surprised to pull this one in. It’s very vibrant. The picture doesn’t do it justice. It shines like gold when the sun hits it just right.
I’ve seen them online. I’ve seen other people say they’ve caught them, but I’ve never caught one myself or seen one with my own eyes.”
The crappie was 13 inches long and weighed in around two pounds, which Haddan described as “dinner plate-sized.”
When she was asked what she plans to do with it, she said she put it in a koi pond and plans to return it to the fishing pond:
“I like to eat fish, but I also don’t see the need to kill something when there’s no need for it.”
