The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks (KDWP) has removed a local fisherman’s state record after investigating a citizen’s claim that the fish’s weight may not be accurate.
On April 4th of 2023, Kansas-native Bobby Parkhurst was awarded with a new state record after catching a white crappie weighing 4.07 pounds. Just five days after, however, a tip from an eye witness came in that put the whole thing in question.
The tip stated that the fish had been weighed at separate locations and at one point “weighed only 3.73 pounds,” according to the KDWP.
In an effort to “preserve the integrity” of the department’s state record program, the KDWP reached back out to Parkhurst for a re-examination of the record fish.
“When staff used a handheld metal detector to scan the fish, the device detected the presence of metal,” Nadia Marji, chief public affairs and engagement officer with the KDWP, shared in a statement with Fox News Digital.
“Wardens then took the fish to the Topeka Zoo for X-ray examination where it was revealed that two steel ball bearings were inside the crappie,” Marji said.
The findings resulted in the removal of Parkhurst’s record and reinstated the previous state record set by Frank Miller in 1964 after Miller caught a 4.02 pound, 17.5-inch white crappie.
