If you’re throwing fish back, you never catch a mess of fish. You can catch a lot or a bunch. You might even have a great day where they were hitting everything you were throwing at them. Great memories, beautiful pictures, and stories that will last a lifetime: but you can’t say that you caught a mess of fish.

However, if you play your cards right, have a stringer or a live well, and aren’t afraid of a few scales or a little blood, you can catch a mess of fish.

Before I go any farther in this article, I do want to acknowledge the hard left turn that these ideas appear to be taking from the usual fare found on Casting Across. After all, you’re usually reading about the quarry and culture of fly fishing. Crappie are not the usual quarry and lithium-ion filet knives are generally not part of the culture. I’m not advocating for an incursion, per se. I do think that it is important to validate that such interests do lie within the borders of this great outdoor nation.

And I’m going to firmly plant my flag in the soil of fried fish.

It has been years since I’ve actively sought to bring home a mess of fish. Populations of striper and brook trout in peril don’t lend themselves to such aspirations. But I’m not opposed to harvesting fish. It was standard operating procedure while ice fishing. In put-and-take fisheries, hatchery trout made for a decent enough meal. For all the fragile fisheries out there, ample stocks of certain species are ripe for the picking.

A recent acquaintance has a bead on a spot on a lake brimming with crappie.  I’ve been humbled in enough outdoor pursuits to realize that there is a level of specialization that exists in any activity. Fly fishing doesn’t have the corner on fanatic obsession and narrow focus. There is an entire crappie community that gets dreamy-eyed when thinking of calico-colored slabs. And filling up on filets  wasn’t as easy as tossing whatever into the water. It meant getting to the ramp before everyone else, using delicate rods paired with floss-thin line, and placing an inordinate emphasis on netting fish well.

Much could be said about the first two points in that previous sentence. Location scouting and gear choices are fascinating. But it was the playing and the landing of fish that really jumped out (pun) at me.

While fly fishing for the purpose of catch and release, I’ve long maintained anything that fights well is worth celebrating. Fallfish, pickerel, and fat panfish aren’t a huge letdown when targeting trout. But when the frypan is in view the entire paradigm shifts. Hard running smallmouth and white bass were disappointing. As soon as the light rod began to dance sideways from something shaking its head ten feet down, there was a groan of failure. It wasn’t a crappie. It was just a bass.

Netting the fish and getting it into the boat also took on more importance. Each flopping crappie represented two fine-fleshed filets. Paper mouths pierced by fine wire hooks required a whole other employment of finesse tactics. Messing that up elicited more groans than inadvertent bass.

All of the intricacies of crappie fishing are more or less variations on the theme of fishing. Things are different in bits and pieces from fly fishing. It is about being outside, problem solving, and spending time with people. There are more similarities than points of discontinuity. With the exception of the final point of consequence: cornmeal, sizzling oil, and hot sauce. A delicious catch and release into hot grease.