For about a decade Tim White has fished Virginia’s Occoquan Reservoir, where he owns a lake house near the town of Woodbridge. He regularly catches catfish and bass, along with some giant crappies from the lake, which lies less than 30 miles southwest of Washington D.C.
Late in the afternoon on May 12, White headed out alone onto Occoquan in his 17-foot Bass Tracker. The 67-year-old wanted to know if spawning black crappies had shown in some shoreline areas with downed trees. He’d caught some big ones in previous years out of those same spots.
“I’d caught a couple crappies the previous day, and I thought some big ones might be near the lakeside tree tops,” White tells Outdoor Life. “I started fishing about 6 p.m. and caught one on a small 2-inch diving Rapala plug. I made another cast with my spinning outfit and hooked a very good one.”
White carefully fought the crappie, drew it beside his boat and netted the fish.
“It was the biggest one I’d ever seen, and I’ve caught lots of big ones from Occoquan,” he says. “I caught a white crappie from the lake about 10 years ago that was 17-inches long, but this black crappie was bigger.”
Using a measuring tape, White measured his black crappie at 18.5 inches in length. He knew it was a trophy-sized fish, so he called his wife, Jean, and asked her to come to the lake to take photos. Tim had put the crappie in his boat’s live well, and he considered taking it to a lakeside marina to have it weighed on certified scales.
“But they didn’t have certified scales,” White explained. “I wanted to release the fish back into Occoquan, so I didn’t leave the lake to have it weighed. I waited until Jean arrived and made photos of the live fish, then I released it back into the lake.”
White applied online for a Virginia trophy fish award for his 18.5-inch black crappie. He’d done this many times in the past, and the state awarded White with a lifetime “Expert Angler” certificate, verifying that he’s caught at least 10 trophy fish of the same species. Since he released his black crappie before weighing it, however, the fish was not eligible for a state record.
In hindsight, though, White’s fish could have been a new world record. The current IGFA length record for black crappie is 16.54 inches. That fish was caught in Virginia in January by Derek Merricks, and it tied Merricks’ previous length record of 16.1 inches. The IGFA tracks both length records, which are typically caught and released, and traditional weight records, which can be released after they’re weighed on a certified scale but are often killed in the process.
White’s Virginia crappie was two inches longer than Merricks’ January fish, which is more than enough to replace both of his crappie records. (The IGFA requires that any new length record be at least 2 centimeters longer than the current record.) But it won’t qualify for an IGFA world record because it wasn’t measured on an official IGFA measuring device. Those measuring boards cost $50 and are only available from the Florida-based organization.
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“IGFA has length records for fish to encourage anglers to measure and then release their big fish,” says IGFAS manager Zack Bellapigna. “But to maintain consistency in measuring, we require an approved IGFA board measurement device made by one company for that use.”
White, meanwhile, had never heard about the IGFA or Merrick’s record crappie before speaking with Outdoor Life. But he didn’t seem too worried that his fish wasn’t eligible for world-record status.
“I know I’ve caught plenty of big crappies from Occoquan over the years,” White says. “I’ll consider having a taxidermist make a replica mount, since technically it was a world record.”
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