http://www.MS-Sportsman.com April 2015 | Mississippi Sportsman 9
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As
you will read in John Woods’ feature in this issue,
Mississippi has many of the top-ranked crappie lakes.
He features three of them that one publication and
its website list as the No. 1, No. 5 and No. 6 crappie lakes in the
country — Grenada, Sardis and Barnett Reservoir, respectively.
They are three of the five lakes that lie along Interstate 55 in
the northern half of the state, which a few decades ago led one
statewide outdoor writer to label I-55 as the true “super slab.”
For those of more recent generations, the term “super slab” was
coined as a nickname for interstate highways back during the C.B.
radio era of the ’70s. “Slab,” of course, is also the term for giant crappie.
Get it?
“It is true that I-55 is the highway to the world’s greatest crappie
fishing,” said Rabbit Rogers of Fannin and the Magnolia Crappie
Club. “From Barnett up to Grenada, then Enid, then Sardis and
then Arkabutla: It doesn’t get any better, anywhere.”
In the rankings mentioned above from Fishhound.com, Enid is
included at No. 13 and Arkabutla at No. 19. Adding to the Super
Slab reputation is the fact that Fred Bright’s long-standing world-
record white crappie — 5 pounds, 3 ounces — was caught in
1957 at Enid Lake.
You might think that, since I-55 runs north and south with
about a 200-mile variation in latitude between Barnett Reservoir
near Jackson and Arkabutla Lake near Coldwater, there’d be a
staggered start to the spawn.
“Not always the case,” Rogers said. “I have heard of club mem-
bers catching them spawning at Grenada and Enid, even Sardis,
before we started at Barnett.“But the bottom line is that April 15 will be very, very close to
the peak of the spawn no matter where you fish in the northern
half of the state. It could be a week or 10 days either side of it,
but you can bet the house on it — if you are fishing at one of the
lakes on April 15, the fish will be spawning.”
April’s full moon this year is early, going 100 percent full on April
4, which could shift the start of the spawn to the first half of the
month.
“Maybe so, but let’s wait and see what the water temperatures
do before making that call,” Byram’s D.K. Partridge said. “We hit 66
degrees or higher around that full moon, and it will happen.”
Rogers would like to see it warmer.
“Yes, they will spawn in 66- or 68-degree water, but I’ve always
said more crappie are spawned in 70-degree water than below
it,” Rogers said.
But even if water temperatures are low and the full moon is a
non-factor due to timing, crappie are still going to spawn in April
because of one other ingredient in the timing of the spawn —
photoperiod. Like most of Nature’s creatures, crappie behavior is
affected by their natural ability to discern the length of daylight
compared to darkness.
“I believe that, and it makes sense since the peak of the crappie
spawn is always close to April 15,” Rogers said. “Obviously, in every
lake, not all crappie spawn at one time. On Barnett, I’ve caught
spawners in late March and I’ve caught some in June.
“But, there is always a peak — that short period when more fish
are spawning that any other period. That peak is always in April in
Mississippi.” ■Tracking slabs
Rabbit Rogers of Fannin knows where he will
be on April 15, and it won’t be sending his taxes
to the IRS.Bobby Cleveland