Barnett crappie by the clock

When Rabbit Rogers plans a summer crappie trip on Barnett Reservoir, he dresses for heat, brings a lot of water and plans to fish all day, no matter how torrid the dog day gets.

“You got to be prepared because the bite gets better as the sun gets high and the day heats up,” said Rogers, one of the few pure jig fishermen around on the 33,000-acre lake near Jackson. “If you can’t stand the heat then this is not going to be your kind of fishing.

“I think that’s why we see so many trollers and drift fishermen on this lake now, like Grenada or Sardis. They like to keep the boat moving and create a breeze. It’s productive, but it’s not my style.”

Rogers is a vertical purist. He locates deep structure, either natural or man-made, positions his boat within an 11-foot B&M pole’s reach and then works his magic with a brightly colored jig.

Wednesday on Barnett, it was with a chartreuse 3/32nd-ounce jig with an orange head that Rogers illustrated his by-the-clock pattern. After an early morning squall delayed his start, he began working his way down the lake from Mississippi Highway 43. We met him at his second stop, on an old tree that had washed up in stumps on the edge of the river a few hundred yards from the bridge.

“I’ve caught a few, but it’s slow right now,” Rogers said. “They’re kind of scattered and are biting politely (softly). Most of the ones I’ve caught have hit it on the fall, like they’re on top of the cover and not in it.”

It was 9 a.m., and the fish were at 9 feet.

An hour later, with the sun higher and the thermometer rising out of the 80s into the 90s but with clouds still around, the fish had moved down another foot.

It was 10 a.m., and the fish were at 10 feet.

The bite was still slow but Rogers was confident. The squall was breaking up and leaving the area, taking its rumbling and threat of lightning and wind with it. No longer worrying about having a storm between him and his truck, Rogers pointed his boat south and headed down the lake.

“That’s where the fish are and where I want to be in the summer,” Rogers said. “I got a lot of spots down there, and we will find one that will be hot.”

It wasn’t the first or the second stop, but it was getting better. Each stop produced a fish or two.

It was 11 a.m., and the fish were at 11 feet.

Rogers decided to make a long run, racing down the lake to an area with several man-made fish attractors in 20 feet of water just off a drop from 10 and 12 feet. He marked the different cover with marker buoys and put us on one while he hit another.

This time, the bite was on.

It was noon, and the fish were at 12 feet.

“This is what you want,” Rogers said. “When the sun gets this high, they head deep into the heart of that cover. They want to put something between it and their eyes. That helps us because we can pinpoint location.”

Bam! Bam! Bam!

The polite bite had been replaced by hand-jarring bites. The 10- to 12-inch keepers we’d slowly been adding to the fish box quickly became big slabs.

“I tell people all the time that some of the best fishing I do all year on Barnett Reservoir is on the hottest days of the summer, when it’s brutal out here,” Rogers said. “You just have to deal with it, dress in light clothes that breath and block the sun and drink all the water you can. You can always take a break and run around the lake a bit to cool down.”

But, honestly, when the clock strikes 12, the fish move deep and the poles start bending… man, that’s cool.