With the creation of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers connected those rivers to produce a short cut for navigation between the heartland of the South and the Gulf of Mexico. No longer were barges forced to carry their cargoes to the west to the Mississippi River, then down to New Orleans.

Once clear of the waters of Pickwick Lake at the junction of Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee, this waterway also created a number of new reservoirs and pools in the northeast corner of the Magnolia State.

The first of these impoundments as one travels south on the waterway is Bay Springs Lake, a clear-water reservoir. Then moving through more man-made canals and lock pools, waters back up in the major impoundments of Aberdeen and Columbus lakes.

There is a common thread to the various parts of this system in the springtime. You may have to use different styles of fishing, but it is possible to catch crappie in each of these locations. Larry Pugh, the district fisheries biologist responsible for the Tenn-Tom Waterway, knows this string of lakes better than anyone. Here, he offers the lowdown on the crappie populations along the waterway, while avid and veteran Tenn-Tom angler A.E. Smith of Wesson explains how he targets slabs during April.

BAY SPRINGS LAKE
Oddly enough, 6,000-acre Bay Springs Lake is not only the first impoundment on the Tenn-Tom Waterway, it's also the most overlooked with regard to crappie fishing. This reservoir is located just south of Pickwick Lake in Tishomingo and Prentice counties.

"This lake is similar to Pickwick Lake in that many crappie fishermen use the same tactics to fish Bay Springs as they use at Pickwick, including trolling and side-pulling for catching crappie," Pugh said. "This is a deep-water fishermen's lake."

A lot of fishermen use hair jigs primarily to troll over old creek channels at Bay Springs. The impoundment also holds a vast amount of sunken brush, often 15 to 30 feet deep. Either of these places may attract the papermouths.

"Not typical of any other lake in Mississippi, Bay Springs is the deepest pool in the state," Pugh noted. "At times the lake is so clear, you can see 4 to 6 feet deep."

Locating the spawning grounds can be a bit tricky on this reservoir. "The water level in Bay Springs fluctuates depending on the water levels in Pickwick Lake," Pugh explained. "In Bay Springs, crappie may spawn in water as deep as 10 feet. However, there's a period during April when the deep-water crappie move into shallow water. But the most dependable crappie are consistently in deeper water, holding on brush."

If you like to fish around visible treetops, stumps and other structure, then you may not enjoy fishing Bay Springs. Fishing deep in open-water situations is the rule here, rather than the exception. In fact, to catch crappie at Bay Springs consistently, you have to know how to use a depthfinder and a GPS.

"Anglers who can find crappie with electronics will have good crappie fishing here at Bay Springs," Pugh concluded.