Anderson: Walleyes are tasty — but crappies and sunnies are more fun

Two questions about the designation in 1965 by the Legislature of the walleye as the state fish:

One, why did it take so long?

And two — and more relevant to today's discussion — why was the walleye chosen instead of the crappie? Or, for that matter, the "sunfish,'' a catch-all term that in Minnesota includes green sunfish, orange-spotted sunfish, bluegills, pumpkinseed, northern sunfish, warmouth and the hybrids thereof?

Which, after all, is more fun to fish for and/or catch: Sunnies and crappies — or walleyes?

Of course, the answer to this last question is, "It depends on the time of year.''

Meaning that in spring and early summer, when panfish (another catch-all term that for present purposes means "sunnies and crappies'') are in shallow water, they are by far among the most "fun'' fish to seek, besting not only walleyes in that respect, but most if not all other Minnesota game fish.

The reason: Crappie and sunnie action in springtime can be so fast that sometimes bait isn't even required to trigger a bite. Oftentimes a small tube jig with a bare hook, or even a colored jig sans a tube, is all an angler needs to catch these tasty morsels.

I was thinking about this the day before the walleye opener, when my wife, Jan, and I stopped en route to Winnibigoshish for a couple of hours of crappie fishing.

This was as much her idea as mine, in part because her late mother, Odile "Sunny'' Netko, was an avid panfish angler, and in that respect the two were cut from the same cloth.

Sunny, in her later years, suffered from macular degeneration and was legally blind. But when Jan and I took her out on the Whitefish Chain, where she had a cabin, she could see a bobber on her line if she dropped it directly over the side of my boat and if she draped herself over the gunwale to get as close to the water as possible without falling in.

Her poor vision notwithstanding, she knew how to set the hook when her bobber disappeared. And set it she did.