Ok so I went bank fishing at a local lake/pond in Flower Mound this morning.

Got there about 5 am using nightcrawlers. Caught and released a couple small cats. Then i got a big bite.

Fought hard, pole bent way over. Wow what a nice sandi! About 18 inches as fishing stories go...

Put him on my stringer and leaned over to drop him in the water when either I slipped or he jumped and the stringer went out of my hand!!!

He sluggishly started to swim away when I decided I was NOT going to let him get away. So, like any other reasonable fisherman would... I jumped in after him. Water became instantly muddy, I lost site of him. Desperately trying to feel around for the stringer, nothing.

I Pull my self out of the cold water, saying "Thank you Jesus for this lesson".... Ok maybe I was swearing instead....

So theres a big sandi toting a stringer in that pond. Maybe I'll catch him tommorrow or another day.

Oh Lucky, Fear ye the persistent fisherman.

True story.

[edit]
Im not sure if it was a sandi or a crappie. it was long, white on the bottom, yellow from mid to top. medium sized mouth. but had a narrow body. sorry no pictures camera would have gone in with me anyway

Here's a sandy:


Here's a white crappie:

Sandies have horizontal stripes and bars, crappie have vertical.

Cool story though.

cool story

It's usually a good idea to identify what species you've caught BEFORE you put it on a stringer. If it was 18in you were safe either way, but a warden wont show any mercy to you if you make a mistake.

Sounds like a real good Sandy from your story as crappie rarely get that big and Sand Bass generally fight pretty hard.