"Big fish and almost no other fishermen," Roger Gant said with a grin. "That's a hard combination to beat."

Since he's one of the top crappie guides in the country, it was no wonder that the lack of a crowd was just fine with him. Besides, we were fishing for fun rather than for profit -- if anybody could really call the whole thing "fun."

I had to agree that the fish were there, all right, and that the average weight was considerably better than any string of crappie that I could recall -- certainly in recent history. Why big fish like cold weather and seem to congregate with other broad-shouldered specimens like themselves may be forever a mystery, but I had no trouble figuring out why no other anglers were within sight: They didn't like the idea of monofilament freezing to their rod guides!

The temperature was in the low 30s, and the wind had obviously made the trip from the North Pole with nothing more substantial between its origin and our position than a barbed-wire fence or two. Patches of snow that clung to shady spots on the shoreline did nothing to help the mental image, either.

Gant adjusted our drift rate with the side-mounted trolling motor so that the two 1/4-ounce jigs per rod remained as near directly under the rod tips as possible. After a glance at the sonar unit he made a small course correction to keep us positioned right on the edge of a long submerged creek channel that meandered through the Yellow Creek portion of Pickwick Lake. Because of its proximity to his home in Corinth, and because he rates it as one of the very best places for winter crappie, the guide knows where he's going, even if someone on the shoreline might look out and suspect that we were having motor trouble.

First one of the super-sensitive rods dipped downward; as Gant reached for it, the rig in front of me did the same. Multiple hookups are rather common when you hang out with this guy. In fact, we once hooked seven fish on five rods -- and that turned into a circus. But the size of the white crappie hoisted in with the oversized net was anything but common. My specimen went about a pound and a half, while his beat mine out by several ounces. That happens a lot when fishing with this veteran crappie man -- and I can't for the life of me figure out why a fish more than 20 feet below the surface can tell his lures from mine.

Up in walleye country they call Gant's pet technique "pulling." It has also been called "controlled drifting" and "slow-trolling." Whatever the designation, it involves using the wind and a trolling motor to maintain very slow, steady coverage of specific types of structure.

"At this time of year I like the creek edges," Gant said, "although you can sometimes find fish on dropoffs and deep flats with cover. In lakes with flooded timber in deep water the crappie may school up close to the trees or back in them, like you would expect, but they can cross you up and hold out in open water away from the cover. A good depthfinder is almost as important right now as good-quality tackle. Fishing blindly is just about a sure way to go home empty-handed.

"I'd also suggest that when you locate fish in a new spot, write it down for solid future reference -- because if a spot holds crappie this January, then you can probably count on it next winter unless the water conditions are totally different."