Earlier this month, a Kansas fisherman vehemently criticized law enforcement authorities for confiscating his 2023 state-record crappie, asserting that he had “legally and honestly” caught the fish. However, recent revelations from the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks investigation, obtained by Outdoor Life on Friday, suggest that the angler, Bobby Parkhurst, may have attempted to deceive his way into the record books.
The state-record saga began on March 5, 2023, when Parkhurst caught a slab white crappie from a small public reservoir near Manhattan. A statement from KDWP details how Parkhurst first weighed his fish at one bait shop where it fell short of breaking the state record. Parkhurst then apparently stuffed the fish with ball bearings before visiting another certified scale to obtain the heavier weight of 4.07 pounds that initially qualified it as a state record. Investigators proved this by X-raying the crappie after seizing it from Parkhurst’s home in April 2023.
Read the full article by Dac Collins via Outdoor Life here.
