Photo by Ron Sinfelt.

The Tennessee-Tombigbee Water-way offers a fertile fishery that provides magnificent habitat for crappie. In the Magnolia State it's anchored by Pickwick Lake in the north and Aliceville Lake in the south. Both of those reservoirs offer outstanding fishing for crappie this time of year.

"They're probably not the best lakes for trophy crappie in Mississippi, but they produce plenty of crappie in the 1- to 1 1/4-pound size range," said Mississippi Department of Wildlife Fisheries and Parks district fisheries biologist Larry Pugh. "Two-pounders are not unheard of in either place."

Because of its high fertility, the Tenn-Tom has abundant shad, which provide plenty of food with which to grow good crappie. "The shad are the right size, too," Pugh said. "And that's the key."

But the lakes are totally different, he pointed out: Pickwick is clear and deep; Aliceville is muddier, with lots of stumps, weeds and brushtops. Thus, effective fishing techniques for the two bodies of water can be totally opposite as well.

Let's take a closer look at just what is involved in catching springtime slabs on each end of the waterway.

PICKWICK LAKE
Because Pickwick's water is so deep, the window of opportunity for taking spring crappie there is fairly small.

"The fish start to go shallow as the water warms," Pugh explained. "When I talk shallow on Pickwick, I'm talking about water that is 6 feet deep or less. Ninety percent of the crappie fishing that takes place when the fish go shallow utilizes a tactic known as 'pulling.' It was made popular by fishing guides Roger and Bill Gant."

According to Pugh, "pulling" consists simply in outfitting a fishing boat with a trolling motor amidships that pulls the boat sideways through the water. "You usually have three people in the boat, and they have two or more rods apiece, either sitting in rod holders or leaned against the side of the boat," he said. "You find a piece of structure you want to fish and go over it using this pulling technique."

This method differs from trolling in that the sideways presentation allows the anglers in the boat to put more baits in the strike zone. It can be a highly effective technique for putting crappie in the boat.

Few of the lake's pullers use minnows with their rigs; it's almost entirely a jig-fishing method. Squirrel- or deer-hair jigs seem to be the preferred bait.