One historically productive crappie location at Aliceville is Hairston Bend, also known as Pruitt's Camp. An old river run on the lake, it offers both shallow and deep locations to probe for slabs. Pumpkin Creek near the state line is another good location for spring crappie fishing.

Pugh compared Aliceville Lake to a shallow pond with a ditch running through the middle of it, the ditch being the channel of the old Tombigbee River. "One good point about Aliceville is that the wind can really play havoc with your plans on a big waterway like the Tennessee River up north," he said. "At about 8,900 acres, the wind isn't nearly the factor on Aliceville. There are enough sheltered shorelines that you can find a place to get out of the wind and keep fishing."

Pugh also noted that Columbus Lake -- just upstream from Aliceville -- is actually the more renowned fishing hole of the two. "Everyone wants to fish Columbus," he said. "I think it's because of the facilities. There are plenty of motels and restaurants and you can launch your boat right in town."

But Aliceville, Columbus and another upstream sister lake, Aberdeen, are all cut from the same cloth, and fish very much alike. "They're the three-lake chain that make up the lower Tombigbee River," Pugh said. "Columbus Lake is the focus of a lot of fishing, but Aliceville is very good, too."

In the biologist's opinion, the best time to visit Aliceville or the other lakes is the second or third week of March. "It coincides with spring break in Mississippi," he said, "and it's when a lot of fishermen have really good success. The crappie are usually moving up into shallow water at that time."

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Whether it's Pickwick in the north, Aliceville in the south or somewhere in between, the Tenn-Tom Waterway provides excellent places at which to try your hand at boating a limit of crappie this spring.