Photo by Ron Sinfelt

The sky glowed a warm orange as the little johnboat powered by only a trolling motor slid away from the boat launch. A heron rookery was our only gallery as Harold McAlpine cruised the quiet-running motor towards a point opposite the ramp. The adult birds "skronked" at the babies and us made hopeful clacking sounds.

"Jim, get ready. We're almost to the place where Bobbie and I caught a bunch last time out," McAlpine said. "If we can mark some of these beds it won't be any problem to get our limits by 10 a.m."

Standing in the bow of the boat Jim Spencer watched through his Polarized glasses and held a piece of foam in each hand. Tied to and wrapped around each piece was about eight feet of line with a heavy weight tied at the other end.

"Just ahead," Spencer exclaimed. "I see two, no five circles on the bottom, about the size of dinner plates."

He threw one of the foam markers into the middle of the area as McAlpine turned the boat away from the bedding area tucked in a small cove just inside the tip of the point.

"That's one, now we need about ten more spots just like that," McAlpine said. "It's funny some of the best sites that never get fished are close to boat launches. Maybe people want to let their motors out and go fast, or maybe they think it's cheating to catch fish so close, but there always seem to be panfish close around where dozens of boats might put in during the day."

The rest of the lake stretched out around us. We'd have to hurry if we were going to mark many more spaces and still have time to fish before the water skiers and recreational boats showed up. One of the problems of fishing small waters like Lake Geiger that is close to a major Mississippi city, is sharing it with a lot of other folks who have decidedly different forms of entertainment in mind.

The fish are there, but the combination of noise and waves makes it almost impossible to catch wary crappie during the middle of the day. Basically there are three choices, fish early, fish at night or rock and roll through midday and put very few fish in the boat.

The problem with fishing early or late is getting into places that lock their gates. It takes study and planning to figure out a way to enter early enough to take advantage. For the folks with motor homes there's camping out.

However, if you have a detailed area map and knowledge of the lake there are often ways to enter through the back. Paul B. Johnson State Park, which holds Geiger Lake, has a back entrance that is about 1 1/2 miles north of the main gate on U.S. Highway 49. Along this road there are places where small boats can be launched without even entering the park.

Anyhow, back to fishing. We marked seven potential beds. Although crappie were not swarming in the shallows as they had been in April we still found a lot of active beds around the margin of the lake.