A fisherman caught a rare catch while on a Missouri pond with his family.
Holly Haddon recently moved to Springfield, and her new property included a couple-acre fishing pond, she told McClatchy News. “I decided to go down there with my family” on the evening of Monday, October 3, “and we all just fished for worms.”
“I really didn’t know much about this pond. We were just catching him to see what was in him,” Haddon said.
“I wasn’t even paying attention,” she said. “I was talking to my brother who just got back from the Marines and he said, ‘Hey sis, your bob is gone.’ Hadan set the hook and began reeling in the catch.
At first she saw a yellow fish and thought she had caught a perch. When she looked closer, she realized that “he had a mouth and fins of shit.”
She caught a rare one golden crappie, the Missouri Department of Conservation said in a Facebook post on Oct. 5. Crappie are usually colored black or white, informed the department. This fish has a genetic condition – known as xanthachromism – which has resulted in more yellow pigment.
“I was really surprised when I pulled it in,” Haddon said. “It’s very bright. The picture doesn’t reveal it. It shines like gold when the sun hits it just right.”
“I saw them on the Internet. I’ve seen other people say they’ve been caught, but I’ve never caught one myself and never seen it with my own eyes,” she said.
The crappie was 13 inches long and weighed about two pounds. “He’s the size of a dinner plate,” Haddon said.
She put the unique fish in the koi pond and plans to return it to the pond soon. “I like to eat fish, but I also don’t see the need to kill anything if I don’t have to,” Haddon said.
Golden crappie are “the rarest of the crappie species” Crappie Fisher informed. “Consider yourself one of the luckiest people on the planet if you ever catch this rare breed!”
Springfield is about 170 miles southeast of Kansas City.
