Can May return us to normal?

Covid-19 ruined April for outdoorsmen.

Have you ever had somebody — perhaps your mom and/or dad when you were a misbehaving little brat — threaten you with “If you don’t settle down, I’m going to knock you into next month?”

Ever wish they’d come back and follow through with that threat?

Like, say, in April.

Mississippi sportsmen and sportswomen, especially those that like to chase spawning crappie, shallow bass and bedding bream, wouldn’t have minded a fast-forward to May, or maybe even to the spring of 2021.

“I wouldn’t mind that all,” said Tommy Jacobs of Jackson, an avid crappie angler on Barnett Reservoir. “When they announced they were closing the state-managed lakes all over Mississippi, including Barnett, man, my heart was broken. The crappie were just getting cranked up and then, poof, we couldn’t go get them.”

On April 1, as the coronavirus disease COVID-19 was rapidly spreading in the state, Mississippi’s first-year governor, Tate Reeves took the bold step of closing the state’s beaches on the Gulf Coast and all lakes managed by the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks — as well as Barnett Reservoir. He also shuttered state-maintained boat ramps on some rivers and other lakes. The order was effective at 5 p.m. on Friday, April 3.

Options available

Under Reeves’ order, the only public lakes open to fishing have been the five U.S. Army Corps of Engineers flood-control reservoirs: Arkabutla, Sardis, Enid, Grenada and Okitibbee, and the Tenn-Tom Waterway. Those bodies are under federal jurisdiction. Private lakes and some rivers and streams were open to fishing if people had legal access.

That meant that at a time when Mississippians were becoming stir crazy with few outs, they couldn’t fish unless they got an invite to a private honey hole.

Let’s hope that as May arrives, we will have reduced the upward curve of COVID-19, and we can return to the water.

Stay safe and stay healthy.