Slab crappies are meat eaters—sure enough minnow munchers. They take artificials well at times, especially jigs—but big crappie will turn their noses at even the best of the best crappie lures.

The sport, as the saying goes, is called fishing, not catching. For me, the point was being on the river. On that 10-mile stretch of the Colorado, we saw golden eagles, common mergansers and bighorn ...