70 Mississippi Sportsman^ | April 2015
The
Magnolia Crappie Club’s February
tournament was held at Lake
Washington under horrible
weather conditions.
My tournament partner, Herman Duckworth, and
I went up on Thursday to get in a couple of days of
“practice.” Herman actually had to spend two vaca-
tion days to make the trip
with me.
When we got there mid-
morning Thursday, it was
windy and raining off and
on, and frigid. We didn’t
get the boat wet — at least
not the underside of the
boat — that day. Sat in the
cabin, rode around the lake
a time or two, cooked liver
and onions for supper, and
turned in early.
Friday was not much bet-
ter. We put in under threat-
ening skies. And, yep, about
an hour into the prefishing
day it began to rain.
My feet got wet and cold
quickly — I had on the
wrong shoes. We came
in, put the boat up and
gathered with the other fair-
weather fisher-
men in a cabin or
two on the north
end of the lake and hunkered down.
Saturday morning, the wind was blow-
ing hard. It actually slowed down from
35 mph to around 20 mph at daylight.The governing board of MCC had an informal
meeting. Some decision-makers wanted to cancel
the tournament. Others did not.
Eventually, the reality was pointed out that, unless
the club’s president officially called the meeting to
order and called for a vote, all we were doing was
flapping our gums.With no official meeting and no decision to cancel,
the tournament was on.
The wind was blowing out of the southeast at 20 to
25 mph.Bad-weather tournaments
Wind was almost too much
ABOVE: Brad Chappell
with a guest fisherman
caught one fish at Lake
Washington, but it
turned out to be the big
crappie of the day.
BELOW, RIGHT: William
Tyer and Richard Sanders
of Yazoo City won
the Lake Washington
tournament. Dragging
a logging chain to help
control the boat in very
windy conditions helped
them put seven fish in
the boat.as Big as they grow
Paul Johnson
Paul Johnson is a charter
member and officer of the
country’s largest crappie
club, the Magnolia Crappie
Club. Johnson considers Ross
Barnett Reservoir his home
lake, and he enjoys crappie-
tournament fishing on all
major waterways, lakes and
reservoirs in Mississippi.