15 inch crappies?

[TubeDude]

Lots of fond memories of Clear Lake.  Fished it a lot while I lived in Sacramento in the early 70s.  It was full of little silverside minnows and the crappies grew big and fast...and lots of them.  Also big largemouths and huge catfish.  The lake is ringed with homes right on the water and everybody has a small dock going out into the lake.  At night it was common to see lots of folks out on their docks, with lights, filling big garbage cans with crappies...big crappies.

Most lakes that have big crappies have plenty of food...year round...to grow them big and healthy.  One of my all-time favorite ponds was Patagonia Lake...right down near the border with Mexico in Arizona.  It was an hour drive from where I lived in Tucson and I fished it year round.  It was full of threadfin shad and they fed a variety of species...including the hefty crappies.  15" and 16" slabs were almost routine.  And they grew to about 21" and almost 4#.  Here are pics of a couple of 18 and 19 inch crappies I caught one chilly fall day...along with grundles of smaller ones down to about 14".


I have caught 15" crappies in Utah...from Powell, Willard, Pineview and even Deer Creek.  But anything over a footlong in Utah is a trophy.  Limited food supplies, erratic water levels, short growing season and other factors combine to keep our crappies generally smaller.

Does Patagonia still have those beauties? I was down that way two years ago. I never knew..  That's worth the drive.

I couldn't guarantee it.  I haven't fished it for quite a few years.  But I did a non-fishing drive-by only about 3 years ago.  Judging by how much it has been developed and the increased fishing pressure it gets I suspect it would be more difficult to find that kind of fishing now.  However, there are some other southern Arizona Lakes that are known for producing big crappies...like Roosevelt and San Carlos.  But still, without reliable current intel I wouldn't make a special trip to either of them.  Powell is a lot closer and more reliable...if you can find the crappie schools.  Also, Quail Creek and Sand Hollow are known to kick out some slabs too.  Here are a couple more crappie porn pics from Arizona.