“You ought to come over and go crappie fishing.” That was my friend Joal Reece, who makes his home in Fruitland, Idaho, which is just over the border from Ontario, Oregon.

It’s real easy to say “Let’s go fishing sometime” and then it never happens. I’ve tried to do a better job of taking people up on friendly offers of fishing trips. And of taking people on the trips I’ve promised them. A road trip to Idaho is an excuse to see my cousins, too.

Trevor Barclay and I rolled in to Black Sands Resort and Campground on the shore of C.J. Strike Reservoir on a Friday night. In the morning, our group assembled at the launch.

Cousin Neil, his wife, Amy, 6-year-old Tabor and Lance Souvenir were in Neil’s North River, while Joal Reece with his son Dylan and Trevor and I rode to battle in Joal’s Hewes Craft. We motored away from the dock at 8 a.m., driving out through the narrows and into the flats of the Bruneau arm.

A bass club derby was underway. There are big smallmouth in C.J. Strike. And Bill Reece, the owner of Black Sands Resort, had just caught and released a sturgeon in the Snake River upstream from C.J. Strike the week before that could have set a new state record. His fish, as near as he could measure it, stretched the tape to 126 inches. The current Idaho state catch-and-release record is 124 inches and also came from C.J. Strike. But we were here to fish for crappie because in my whole life I have never caught what I would call a good-size crappie.

Crappie can be found all over the Northwest, and average 7 to 9 inches long in most of the places we catch them. Even crappie powerhouses like Prineville, Owyhee and Brownlee reservoirs are known more for the numbers of fish than for their size. I wanted a crappie that would swamp a dinner plate. Neil wanted a mess for catfish bait. And Lance said if we caught enough he would make fish tacos.

Among the fish we call our favorite food, walleye, ling cod and cabazon are my favorites, but crappie deserve a seat at the table. It’s a flaky white meat with a flavor and texture like walleye and perch.

As a crappie fishing enthusiast, I have a lot of crappie baits. In fact, I have four boxes dedicated to crappie gear. And first out of the box was a buffet rig from TTI-Blakemore. We began to troll in about 15 feet of water along a grassy shoreline and immediately the rod bent over with a strong fish. It fought like a crappie all the way to the boat, but at the net it looked like a 16-inch rainbow. Not a bad start. After that the crappie began to bite.

We experimented with colors and seemed to do best with greens and purples. But the crappie were average and it was time to go hunt bigger fish.

Reece put down the big motor and a few minutes later shut it off and put the trolling motor down again to work a flat adjacent to a stream inlet. In a few minutes my rod bent over with the first bigger fish of the day: an eatin’ size slab that measured 12 inches. Joal, Dylan and I boated some big ones, including one fish that measured 14 1/2 inches. It was a good time to rotate through my boxes to experiment with crappie baits that were usually too big for the crappie back home.

Honestly, it was hard to beat a simple green grub on a 1/8-jighead for sheer numbers, but the Roadrunner Bang Shad limetreuse ghost provoked a lot of grabs and I caught several on chartreuse/orange Slab Buster jigs.

Eighty fish to the net is more than enough for fish tacos and catfish bait. By the time we had cleaned the 30 biggest crappie, I was sold on the electric fillet knife concept. Next time I go crappie fishing, I will buy an electric fillet knife first. You don’t know till you know.

Lance prepped the fillets with egg batter and bread crumbs. Then he made a sauce of yogurt and mayonnaise with dill, cayenne, oregano and cumin, adding cilantro and capers. With fried crappie topped with cabbage, the mayo sauce and a touch of lime, fish tacos were the perfect cap to a great day of family fishing.

Look for crappie to spawn over a six-week period starting in June. A leadhead jig with an action tail is a good bait to swim through the reeds or lily pads. Another option is to slow-fish a jig under a float up next to brush, docks, bridge pilings or flooded trees.

Experiment with color. If you want fish tacos, figure out what the crappie are craving.

Fly-tying corner

Enthusiasts of the stonefly hatch owe it to themselves to pick up this fly and turn it over. This pattern has a more correct golden stone head profile. It is a complicated fly to tie, but it has a realistic profile, accurate weight, near perfect segmentation and dark jointed legs.

The finishing touch is a high-visibility orange locator patch over the wing. Umpqua Fly Company nailed it with this golden stone imitation. They also have a darker salmonfly variant.

Fish this fly in June when the trout are looking up for golden stones. Use a 2X or 3X tippet and splash the fly down behind the big rocks and beneath the branches. Throw a mend to lengthen the float and maybe give it a wiggle.