Sorry Ranger, but I can assure you the picture is not photo shopped/doctored/whatever in any way. I have no idea how to do that even if I wanted to. The man who caught it is my son's friend. He is 6'3" tall. We did not measure it, just took this picture, weighed her on my digital scale and put her back.

If someone wants to scale it, in looking at the picture of the fish, you get a pretty good look at my son's friend's second through forth knuckles. I could ask him to measure that distance and take a picture of his hand with the tape measure.

Monster crappie , congrats to your son's friend.
Most folks here have never caught a 3 lb ( myself included) , so expect some jealousy.

I know I am.

MO

soooooooooooooo glad u threw her bak...is that a Mepps???

She'd aahh been at tha taxi to live on my wall.... beautiful feesh....

Put me in coach!!!

Not sure about this one. Seems a little fishy. The outline of the fish's body is much more defined than say the pants legs and arms and the details of the fish body are clearer than everything else in the picture. I could definitely be wrong, but it looks like a cut and paste with 2 different resolutions? Congrats, just in case.

lifetime catch,..

Wow huge crappie, my brother caught a 4# crappie at Cochiti lake in NM and it had a mouth like that we could put a huge potato in its mouth no problem. The Department of Fish and Game had stocked brooder fish to re-populate Cochiti which didn't work, but there were some huge fish in the lake.

Though the angle is terrible, It looks legit to me.

Yep it is a bad angle but the hand in the mouth tell me it is legit. I would have had a hard time putting her back i the lake. I have seen one crappie over 3 lbs in my entire life and that was in the early 70's from a trotline in White Rock lake.

I can assure you all that it's legit: I took the picture. I was with my girlfriend and my buddy that day. I'm not a cameraman so that is why the angle is garbage lol. He caught it on an H2O Express (Academy) spinnerbait.

Congrats on a fish of a lifetime.
Looks completely legit to me. Rod behind the legs slightly bent; mono stretched tight coming from the rod tip to the bait; you can see the bait in the mouth.

Incredible catch, congratulations!