Allatoona Black Crappie Record Broken After 54 Years

After 54 years, the black crappie record has been broken on Lake Allatoona. The angler was Ralph Evans, of Marietta, who caught the 3-lb., 2-oz. fish on April 6. Below he shares the story of the catch as he pays tribute to a close fishing partner who passed away recently from COVID.

By Ralph Evans

My old friend and fishing buddy Phil recently passed away from COVID-19. He was on my mind as my buddy George White (aka Net Man) and I went to Lake Allatoona for some springtime crappie fishing.

Phil and I met when we were younger through our kids’ involvement in Boy Scouts, soccer and school, and we soon found our families became good friends. Phil worked for Hewlett Packard at the time, and I worked for IBM. A strange friendship for sure, but we found we both liked fishing, boating, family camping and telling stories.

Phil used to organize an annual fishing tournament on Allatoona with his HP teammates. I was the outcast IBM rep. He had silly categories: most fish, biggest fish and smallest fish. It always gave me great pleasure to win at least one category.

Phil and I fished weekends whenever we could during the springtime, and our families enjoyed camping and boating together throughout the year. We had a favorite cove he nicknamed “Catfish Cove” since we somehow always caught catfish there, even though we were crappie fishing. Time passed, we moved apart, kids grew up, and life moved on. We started getting together again as couples and talked of fishing, fun family times and planning new adventures together once again.

Recently I bought a boat and was hoping to hit Allatoona with him once again. Unfortunately, Phil passed before we got the chance.

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As Net Man and I pulled into the Little River launch site, I couldn’t help but recall some great memories of birds nests, lost fish, tangled lines, doubling and tripling up, boating mishaps and lots of laughs.

This particular day (April 6) the lake had just reached full pool after some heavy rains the week before. The water was muddy and full of debris from whole trees to plenty of trash floating. I was not optimistic.

We tried several spots with some success and decent-sized fish. We moved to Catfish Cove and caught nothing in the first few spots while minnow fishing. As we moved farther back into the cove, we started to pick up a few more fish. My bobber went down, and when I picked up the pole, I realized I had a pretty solid fish on. As it came into sight in the murky water, I got a little more excited and called to Net Man to get on the ball and be ready.

When we boated it, I realized it was the largest crappie I had ever caught. I tossed it into the livewell instead of the fish cooler.

Ralph Evans with the new lake-record black crappie from Lake Allatoona.

Net Man Googled and discovered the lake record for a black crappie was set in 1967 and was 3 pounds even. I was at a loss at what to do next to get the fish acknowledged as a potential record. I understood I needed a certified scale, so after calling around, I reached the GON offices, and they had some suggestions and also suggested I call the DNR.

They also asked that I call back to let them know the results. I had no luck trying to find a scale while trying to drive home. I called my wife and asked her to try to find a location. It was getting late in the day and I was worried we would run out of time to get it weighed. As I was about to pull in the driveway, she came running out saying that she had found a place, so she hopped in, and we headed up to the Dugout Bait and Tackle in Marietta.

On the way there, we decided to name the fish “Phil” in memory of my departed fishing partner. They were extremely helpful at the Dugout and the staff was as excited as I was about the fish. We weighed the fish at 3-lbs., 2-ozs. and took pictures of the scale and the certification and called the WRD office in Armuchee.

They advised we had to bring the fish in for a biologist to inspect and determine the species (black or white crappie). So the next morning we took the fish up and showed them the pictures of the weight and the certification, and the Fisheries folks advised the certification had expired and he could not accept the weight provided. My heart sank as I fully expected the fish to have lost some weight overnight. However, even on WRD’s certified scale the fish still weighed 3-lbs., 2-ozs.

Phew! A new lake record for black crappie—officially! I learned WRD has a statewide recognition program called Georgia’s Angler Award Adult Program for game fish of certain weight or length. WRD advised that GON owns and maintains the Georgia Lake and River Records list, so we contacted them.

Once we knew it was recorded, I decided to have it mounted with a plaque that said:  Phil the Fish, April 6, 2021, Caught By Ralph, Netted by George, 3-lbs., 2-ozs.