Features
Tips to take that big Mississippi tom
Four expert Mississippi turkey hunters share some of the tactics they’ve used to fool gobblers over the years, and some basics you should never forget. […]
Articles by David Hawkins
Crappie/Bream
Slab-Slammin’ time
Every spring, an eons-old phenomenon takes place in the lakes and streams of southeastern states: the waters warm, crappie move shallow and become active, and fishermen rejoice. They reap the bounty brought on by the predictable behavior of the fair-fleshed fish.
Bass Fishing
Techniques and presentation are critical
Getting a lure to the depth at which bass are holding and keeping it in the strike zone are two requirements a fisherman must satisfy to entice a strike. How neat it would be to have a lure with a built-in transponder that would transmit its exact depth and location in relation to the bass. Such baits doesn’t exist, but finding structure or drop-offs on the sonar and the ability to feel them with a rod and line will suffice. […]
Bass Fishing
Get the right gear
For prespawn bass, angler Donnie Stuart of Pelahatchie favors 17-pound braided line with a fluorocarbon leader as long as the rod he is using when not using a slip-cork. For the rod with the slip cork he uses a 10- to 12-pound monofilament. […]
Bass Fishing
Throw what bass want
Tom Holman believes lures made to look or act like wounded or dying shad may work best for lethargic winter bass. […]
Bass Fishing
Mississippi’s prespawn hot spots
The Magnolia State has hundreds of bodies of water where bass can be caught, but some are simply better than others at different times of the year and bass cycles. […]
Bass Fishing
Spike those early spawners
February is the beginning of a Mississippi largemouth bass’s trip to the spawn, and a great time for anglers to target the biggest of the big. […]
Crappie/Bream
Sure-thing spillway slabs?
A popular idiom for simplicity is to compare something to “shooting fish in a barrel.” It has no better application than some winter fishing opportunities on the Pearl River when the waters in the spillway below Barnett Reservoir begin to rise. […]
Content
Deer got you down? Be proactive.
December is here, and you’ve caught yourself sitting in the same old stand, watching the same old food plot grow. If the season isn’t going as you had hoped, perhaps it’s time to become proactive about deer hunting. […]
Content
Hunters, take Refuge! National wildlife refuges are among Mississippi’s best public-land offerings for hunters.
The nest time you’re sitting in a stand or a blind, waiting for a deer to materialize in that sweet spot you’ve already picked out, ponder this: if you deer hunted a different tract of public land in Mississippi every week, you’d cover less than half of them. Our great state has just that much open, public land. […]
Deer Hunting
A case for harvest reporting
A change in deer limits being made based on email survey results is the strongest argument ever that it’s time for Mississippi to have an accurate tagging and/or harvest reporting system. […]
Deer Hunting
Bienneville pine beetles: trouble now, but news not all bad
More than 1,000 acres of pine forest in the Bienville National Forest are being felled due to beetle infestation, and that could impact hunting on its three WMAs — Bienville, Caney Creek and Tallahala. […]