I returned to the place of last week’s monster encounter that ended with a broken line. This time I had minnows. And a bag full of wire leaders =).

Some hammer handle pike seemed to be the culprit.

The hook looks deep in the last fish, but I unhooked him just fine. No blood. Hooray for 12″ hemostats!

And as I was poking my minnow through the weeds, I felt my line go tight. I fed the fish some line before setting, and I thought I had hooked a nice bass until it started planing across the surface of the water… it was a crappie!

At 13″, this was my personal best Ontario-caught black crappie (the monsters we found in Florida were a whole different ball game).