Crappie Drop Was Another Big Success
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send you a password reset link.
WATER VALLEY – Only a week into the new year and planning is already underway for the 2025 Crappie Drop in Water Valley. A brain trust meeting is planned, explains James McCormick, who has helped organize the event during the last three drops.
McCormick constructed the second generation crappie, a giant plywood crappie used in 2022; and the third generation, a giant steam punk crappie contraption dropped on New Year’s Eve 2023 and again in 2024.
McCormick is already contemplating ideas for a possible fourth generation crappie for the drop, and has some suggestions to pitch to the informal committee in the upcoming meeting.
“Maybe a zip line crappie that drops down into a newly constructed splash pad in Pocket Park,” McCormick said.
New ideas aside, the 2024 Crappie Drop was another resounding success with 200-plus in attendance.
The event also incorporated more student involvement, with members of the Water Valley High School Chess Club hoisting and lowering the crappie, and members of the high school band performing for the big night. McCormick said that live-streaming the event also worked well, with organizers fielding positive feedback from people who did not brave the cold to watch to fish drop. He noted the only disappointment – some of the new tricks on the steam punk crappie did not work due to technical complications.
“The big lesson, we have to have new, fresh batteries,” McCormick explained. The batteries used when the steam punk crappie was constructed were charged and ready for the big night, but didn’t hold the charge.
And only one of two of the glitter cannons went off which turned out to be a relief during the clean-up on New Year’s Day.
Valley’s first Crappie Drop was held on New Year’s Eve, 2017, when a six-foot, piñata-style crappie was lowered from the top of Yakorun Textiles building at midnight in a Water Valley style emulation of the Times Square shiny ball drop.
