releasing crappie

[Chrisper4694]

I throw up a post like this every once in a while... people will be catching a lot of crappie now and if you didn't notice sometimes (kind of often) they don't swim away, but, instead, just float on the surface with their moth open.

just to be clear, keep what ever you want, BUT if your intentions are to release them, especially the really big ones, here's the trick:

you sometimes have to manually close their mouth and dip their nose into the water. sometimes even give them a little jolt, but the key is to keep their jaw manually closed as they go into the water.

don't ask me why, i have no idea... maybe some kind of instinctual defense mechanism, but if you don't do this you'll kill way more than you intend to and you might not even notice because they sometimes swim away for a second and then come up floating with the jaw locked open. maybe they eventually snap out of it on their own, but I've watched them float for 4-5 minutes at a time before i go over and close their mouth and they swim away...