Turn to these reservoirs for quality crappie fishing.
When most Mississippi anglers hear the word “crappie,” they immediately think of Grenada, Sardis and Arkabutla, all located in the Delta region in the state’s northwestern section. Although these lakes have reputations for producing extraordinary crappie in both numbers and size, other lakes in Mississippi also hold great crappie populations that don’t receive as much fishing pressure as the Delta’s glamor lakes.
Mississippi Sportsman has talked with some of the state’s fisheries biologists, and asked them to pick three of the best other crappie lakes in Mississippi.
Ross Barnett Reservoir
At well-known Ross Barnett, a 33,000-acre lake just outside Jackson, many anglers overlook the crappie-fishing potential in this body of water, according to Tom Holliman, coordinator with Mississippi’s Department of Wildlife Fisheries & Parks (MDWFP).
“Ross Barnett Reservoir is one of the state’s better lakes for crappie fishing,” he said. “This lake has plenty of room for anglers to move around and find crappie, and also holds a good shad population. Ross Barnett doesn’t receive the crappie-fishing pressure the flood-control reservoirs in the Delta do.”
Ross Barnett contains a number of old creek channels, river channels and oxbows once a part of the Pearl River before the lake’s impoundment in 1965. Also, plenty of structure remains along the edges of these creek channels and oxbows.
“A good reservoir map will show the old oxbows and some of the old lakes that were near or part of the Pearl River before Ross Barnett was raised,” Holliman said. “You’ll locate some really good structure holding crappie around these underwater creek and river channels and lakes.”
Use a depth finder on Ross Barnett in places where not many crappie fishermen fish. Recently, the average crappie caught from Ross Barnett has weighed 1 to 1 1/2 pounds.
“One of the fishermen here in our office went out during a recent December, and caught a good limit of 1 1/2- to 2-pound crappie, so we’re getting more, bigger crappie from Ross Barnett than we have in the past,” Holliman said. “Sixteen to 18 artificial reefs were put out at Ross Barnett several years ago, and these reefs have been augmented with additional brush by local fishermen.”
You can pinpoint many more brushpiles along the old creek and the river channels that local fishermen have sunk to create fish attractors for both crappie and bass. To consistently catch crappie from Ross Barnett, spend time on the water locating brushpiles and marking them with a GPS. Then you can return and fish them throughout the year.
“Most local crappie fishermen put a lot of brush into the lake, but they won’t tell you where you can find those brushpiles,” Holliman said. “You’ll just have to identify them yourself.”
Fishermen who know how to read a depthfinder and a lake map and use a GPS consistently will find and take more crappie than anglers who fish visible structure at Ross Barnett.
“Until the crappie start moving up to the shallow water to spawn, possibly in late February or early March, depending on weather and water temperatures, most of the crappie will be holding 14 to 18 feet deep, suspended over structure on the edges of these creek and river channels,” Holliman said.
He recommends anglers look for the crappie holding 2 to 6 feet above the structure in the fall and winter. Since crappie don’t move around much during the winter, you can catch them most effectively with a hand pole and fishing very slowly vertically with either minnows or jigs.
You can catch 30 crappie per day, per person, and Ross Barnett has no length limit. You’ll have an opportunity to catch a limit of crappie every day you fish, especially if you’ve fished Ross Barnett before and know where to find the creek channels, the river channels and the brush pilings.
For newcomers to the area, Holliman suggests fishing across the lake on Highway 43 during the cooler-weather months.
“As you pass over the bridge, look north and south, and wherever you see a concentration of fishermen, that’s where the crappie will be holding,” he said. “To find crappie south of Highway 43, watch the seagulls, which will dive on the bait as schools of crappie force the baitfish toward the surface. When you spot diving birds, move to within casting distance of the birds, running your trolling motor on low to keep from spooking the crappie, and cast to the schools. You’ll find more working birds as you get closer to the dam.
“One of the best places to fish is below the Highway 43 bridge where there’s a big eddy area, known locally as the Welfare Hole, where the crappie hold most of the time during (cool-weather months).”
As the water warms toward the end of February, Holliman recommends fishing the backwater lakes on the Rankin County side of Ross Barnett to find crappie moving up to spawn.
Editor’s note: This article is part of the Other Crappie Lakes feature in the September issue of Mississippi Sportsman. To read about the other two lakes chosen you can download a digital edition right to your computer or smartphone.
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