Summer crappie fishing, like the weather, can be hot on Barnett Reservoir — if you follow these experts’ tips.
It was hot, steamy hot — so much so that it was difficult to breathe, and the worst was yet to come.
The temperature on the flat surface of Barnett Reservoir was in the mid-90s by 10 a.m., and its waters were reflecting the radiant heat of the sun back in our faces.
I swear I thought the lake rose 2 inches just from our sweat.
“Rabbit, we’ve been here three hours and we have six crappie, and I am about to die,” I told my fishing partner, Rabbit Rogers, the well-known master of Barnett crappie who’d promised me a summertime limit. “So when is this great bite you’ve been talking about going happen?
“Hope I’m still alive to see it.”
Rogers laughed, turned from his front seat toward the back of the boat, and shook his head.
“Not hot enough yet,” he said. “When that sun gets up there (pointing straight up), they will go to town. But, you have to get here early just in case they decide to feed early. You never know about crappie.
“It’s about time. Did you notice that we caught all six of those keepers in 8 to 10 feet of water? They will shallow up overnight, and that actually slows the bite because they are scattered in the water column. Sooner or later the sun and the heat and the thermocline will push them down, and then it’s on.”
Rogers, I should have known, was exactly right.
The bite started at 11 a.m., and by 1 p.m. our 60-fish limit was filled — and that included culling small fish.
Understanding the summer bite
We had a box full of summer slabs, and on that torrid day 20 years ago, Rogers made me a believer: Barnett Reservoir crappie are not just a spring and fall fish, and we have often repeated our summer slaughters.
“I prefer the heat of the summer,” Rogers said. “Anybody can catch them during the spring spawn. You go find where they are taking care of their business, and you catch them.
“But summer can be even easier, if you understand two things about Barnett crappie. The first is that they usually eat if you put something in their face, and the second is that where you put it is a lot more important than what you’re putting there.”
For Rogers — then and now — the “what” is always a jig, offered vertically. The “where” is between 11 and 12 feet deep in the shade.
“Barnett Reservoir has one of the most well-defined thermoclines you will ever find,” he said. “And it’s always that depth in the summer. It may vary a few inches, but 11 to 12 feet is the depth to start. When the sun gets up and the day gets hot, the comfortable layer of water is pretty consistent all over this lake.
“That layer is where 90 percent of our crappie are going to be.”
Thermocline is defined as the transition layer of a body of water where the warm surface waters mix with the cooler but less-oxygenated deeper water. That transition layer gives fish — crappie, bass, striped bass, shad — the best mix of temperature and oxygen.
Cover
Understanding that and how crappie relate to cover on Barnett is the key to Rogers’ success.
“Everybody talks about structure, but the key is cover,” he said. “Cover, to me, means something a fish can get under, putting the cover between the sun and his eyes. That’s why you need to find horizontal cover.”
Since Barnett has more standing timber than any other major crappie lake in Mississippi, it has historically been a jigging lake.
Over the past decade, that has changed.
“Used to be that jigging is all we did, all everybody did on Barnett, especially during the summer,” said Paul Johnson, a Rez regular and a former president of the Magnolia Crappie Club. “But when our club started bringing more fishermen from other lakes and areas of the state, fishermen who specialize in trolling, they brought that technique with them.
“We laughed at them. Know what? We didn’t laugh long. They started kicking our butts, and these days you see as many or more fishermen trolling than you do jigging. I am one of them.”
Trolling
Trollers rely more on structure — natural structure like changing contours of the lake bottom. They can be spotted running ridges, river channel edges, old lake beds and anything else that produces a drop at — surprise — that same level on which Rogers relies: the thermocline.
“Anywhere you can find a drop from around 10 feet down to 18, 20 or even 30 feet, that’s a place you can troll,” said Johnson, who began trolling Barnett with jigs but now uses crankbaits. “It’s basically the same technique fishermen use at Grenada, Enid and Sardis except up there they run the main-lake points.
“We don’t have that here, but we do have a lot of contour changes, and when you find the right ones, you can wear them out.”
Rogers’ advice on where being more important than what also plays out in trolling, and gives trollers an advantage because they cover so much more water as they traverse a long ledge.
“Every ledge has a sweet spot or spots, at least most of them do,” Johnson said. “It might be an irregular feature of the ledge or a place where there is some other structure like stumps.”
Because he’s moving all the time, odds are good that the troller will hit that hotspot. In Johnson’s boat, that mark is entered on the GPS unit and filed away for regular use.
Depth
Charles Lindsay, the 2013 Magnolia Crappie Club points champion, offered a third pattern.
“I like to push minnows, or troll if you want to call it, in the summer just like I do most of the year,” Lindsay said. “I use six poles, and my partner and I sit beside each other on the front of the boat, and when it’s good you can hardly keep up with the poles.
“Sometimes we drop to four poles so we can handle it all.”
Lindsay varies his depths from 6 to 12 feet, but noted “that anything deeper than 12 feet is not going to work because the fish are not going below that thermocline.”
While contour changes are important to his fishing style, you can also find Lindsay drifting over deep flats.
“One of my favorite patterns in the summer is fishing over a 10- or 12-foot flat with stumps in the middle of the lake between old lake beds or the river, just somewhere between two deep areas,” he said. “When you get a steady barometer, that’s when I think you can hit those flats.
“The fish will be more aggressive, and they are on the flat to chase shad. That’s when they can really vary in depth from 6 feet on down.”
Of course, there’s the old standby of fishing under fallen treetops on the banks of the river above Highway 43.
“That’s my style,” said Henry Lewis of Madison. “All that other stuff just sounds like too much work. Just give me a couple of poles, a bucket of minnows and my big old umbrella in the front of the boat, and I can usually catch enough for dinner.”
Barnett is always a good choice
Regardless of the technique, Barnett is still a great option for all seasons.
“Barnett’s crappie are doing just fine,” said Larry Bull, the assistant chief of fisheries for the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks.
Bull’s former position was district fisheries biologist for the central area that includes The Rez. His latest stats on Barnett are from the spring of 2013.
“Spring anglers had a good year on Barnett,” Bull said. “We counted almost 1,700 crappie at the landing this year, and the average weight of harvested crappie was .9 pounds — the highest average weight since 2010.
“We had a large number of age-3 fish caught, which led to the larger average weight. We also saw more 30-fish limits than we usually do. Where we usually see one or two limits in a given period, this year we saw six or seven limits.”
Rogers’ crappie jigging technique
Rabbit Rogers has always been and remains a jig fisherman, even during the summer months.
“I’m like an old bass fisherman, only with a jig pole,” he said.
Here’s a look at his equipment and tactics:
Tackle
Rogers always uses an 11-foot B&M Buck’s Classic jig pole, “which I like because it has the reel seat at the end of the handle.”
He uses a modified version of the round, plastic B&M jig reel originally made by Boatside in Jackson. His line is a high-visability 10-pound monofilament like Gold Stren.
Jig
Rogers makes his own jigs, and prefers a 1/16-ounce version. “If I have to, I will go to a 3/32(-ounce) jig on a windy day, but I try to stay away from the 1/8-ounce.”
The colors vary.
Strategy
“I’m looking for horizontal cover — anything a crappie can use for shade. Barnett Reservoir is blessed with thousands of standing trees, but only a small percentage will consistently hold fish, and those are the ones that still have limbs. That’s why I prefer to fish brush piles because they all have horizontal cover.”
Even though most fish will be in the thermocline layer, if his only option for shade is shallower, he will take it. A high-viz line is important because if a tree has a limb at 8 feet, and the fish hits the jig on the fall, you have to see the line start to curl up to know you’ve had a bite.
“Also, Barnett fish are known to bite what I call ‘politely,’ which means it’s so light you don’t always feel it,” Rogers said. “You have to be aware of line movement at all times.”
Lindsay’s crappie pushing technique
“I hate fishing the summer,” Charles Lindsay said, “but I know it can be some of the best fishing of the year, so I go when I feel like I can handle the heat.
“But I fish the same way I usually do, and that’s pushing minnows. I use six poles across the front of my boat, which has two seats up front. We often have to reduce the number of poles to keep up.”
Tackle
Lindsay uses 14-foot B&M Pro Staffs rigged with light spinning reels. His line of choice is 12-pound Gold Stren “because it is strong enough that I can pull it and straighten a hook if I hang a stump. The color I use so I can always see my line and how it’s behaving.”
Hooks
Lindsay is particular about his hooks, always using the Eagle Claw 202EL in No. 1.
“It’s an extra-light gold hook, and I like that,” he said. “There’s also an EL212 and it’s bronze, but I prefer the gold.”
He uses two hooks to the line, one about a foot above a 1/2-ounce sinker and the other 2 or 3 feet above the sinker.
Minnows
“I always use a medium minnow,” Lindsay said. “They will not take a big minnow in the summer, and I don’t like small minnows on the hook like that.
Technique
“Mainly, I’m working contour changes, what most people refer to as ledges. I like to fish the edge of the river channel, too.
“But one of the things I do that most trollers won’t do is fish deep flats — you know 10 to 12 or even 14 feet deep with stumps. On a steady barometer crappie will move up to chase shad on those flats. They will be aggressive fish, that’s for sure, because they are going there to feed.
“I try to push about .9 to 1 mph, but you can pick up the pace a bit if they are on the flats.
“My shallowest hook will always be 6 feet and the deepest 12, so I have two rods at 6 to 8 feet, two more 8 to 10 feet and two more 10 to 12 feet. Never ever will I have one over 12 feet deep in the summer.
“Of course, if I start catching all my fish at one depth, I adjust everything to that depth.”
Johnson’s crappie cranking pattern
The first thing you notice about Paul Johnson when you see him trolling, is that he isn’t running a motor.
“I have one of those Minn-Kotas that has a remote control, allowing me to turn and change speeds from anywhere in the boat,” he said. “And I prefer to troll with a trolling motor because I range from 1.2 to 1.7 mph. In the summer, it’s 1.7.
“I can stand over my GPS unit and follow a contour line.”
Here’s how he sets up for his fishing excursions:
Tackle
Johnson and partner Sid Steen use six medium-action bait-casting bass rods, usually some kind of Shimano, and he uses a variety of bait-casting reels, with the Abu-Garcia Black Max or Silver Max outnumbering others.
Line
“I use braid, only braid. I found a China source I can order that is cheaper in bulk and comes in a variety of colors,” Johnson said. “It is all 14-pound test and has the diameter of 6-pound mono. I put two different colors of braid on each reel: the 100 feet that goes to the lure is one color and the line on the reel will be different, and all of my reels will have different colors to the lure. One, I use that line color to know how much line I have out, which controls depths; I don’t trust line counters, especially for braid.
“The other reason is that sooner or later you are going to get lines tangled when you are using six rods. The different colors help get the tangles out.”
Lures
Johnson has thousands of baits, but is always looking for newer and cheaper lures. His go-to crankbaits are Bomber 4As and 6As, Bandit 200s and 300s, and Wiggle Warts.
“The key is getting two depths — one to run on the shallow side over the contour change and the other deeper to run off the drop,” he said. “You have to learn the different action of lures because in cooler waters, fish are not as aggressive and want a slower but perhaps wider wiggle. Bandits have a tighter, faster wiggle, and that is good for summer crappie.”
Technique: Johnson covers about 10 miles in a day, following long contour changes.
“If I find a depth or lure or color that is clearly out-producing the others, then I rig everything up to that depth or color,” he said.
He will run his lures 8 to 12 feet deep in the summer on Barnett.
“I like to keep all my lures the same distance from the boat, but I will reel them all up quickly if I know I am coming up on a shallow hump or a stump so that they will go over and not hang up,” he added. “Shorter lines mean less depth, and I also reel them up so I can make a sharp turn; then I let the back out. Reduces tangles.”
He is always looking for big schools of shad, either on the surface or his fish graphs.
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