An ad on the back page of a magazine touted a particular brand of crankbait as “the newest and hottest tactic on the water.” In the ad, a young crappie-fishing guide wearing a NASCAR-style fishing jersey emblazoned with sponsors displays a slab crappie while the images of the crankbait in hot pink and neon chartreuse colors fills the background. All the “new” hype over catching crappie on crankbaits makes Ken Franklin just smile. […]
Greg Parker guided his flat-bottomed boat toward a spot near the northern shore of the Ross Barnett Reservoir. In the boat were no rods and reels, no bait buckets or tackle boxes — just a large cooler with some ice, a bag of gloves, a roll of duct tape and a few other tools of the hand-grabbers trade.
Parker cut the motor, removed his life vest and allowed the boat to glide to a near stop before he rolled over the gunwale, hardly making a splash. In his hand was a catch stick, used by poultry workers to collect chickens. […]
Over the years, Parker has been a teacher and guide for others wanting to feel the rush of pulling a big catfish from below the surface with nothing more than natural strength. […]
The hand-grabbing season coincides with the spawning period for blue cats and flatheads. In natural conditions, these fish will spawn in hollow logs, caves and recesses created by fallen trees or jammed debris. […]
Jerry Brown, a fisheries biologist for the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks said the fact that blues and flatheads are cavity spawners accounts for their willingness to enter man-made boxes during the spawning season. […]
Although “Mr. Ken” Franklin agrees the newer crankbaits look good and catch a lot of crappie, he’s a member of the original “Bomb Squad” and prefers to pull plugs made by the Bomber Bait Company. […]
Mississippi fishermen have spent weeks dealing with temperatures that felt a lot more like late July than late May, which is why they’ve concentrated their efforts on summer fishing patterns.
For bass and crappie fishermen, that means concentrating on deep structure and deep cover. […]
More than 70,000 white bass turned belly up in Sardis Lake recently, and the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks said the cause is believed to be a naturally occurring bacteria.
The total number of white bass — which composed more than 97 percent of the fish kill — was estimated at 73,510, the MDWFP reported on May 24. […]
If there is an upside to the onset of Mississippi’s brutal summer heat, it is that catfish seem to enjoy it. They get more active, and that can lead to their demise. As happens every year in mid to late May, the whiskered fish have turned on and are dominating the fishing reports throughout the Magnolia State. […]
Last weekend’s “super moon” — which involved the full moon phase coinciding with its closest proximity to Earth this year — led to incredible commentary and photography that filled social networking sites.
The phenomena also led to extraordinary catches of bedding beam that filled iceboxes and deep fryers across Mississippi.
From private lakes and farm ponds to river oxbows and public lakes, the panfish activity peaked, just as expected. […]
In the early 1970s, a young bass angler by the name of Bill Dance, hosting his own TV show on national television, brought Pickwick Lake to the forefront of American anglers’ attention. Each week, his television audience tuned in to watch Dance battle huge smallmouth bass from the high-bluffed reservoir. Quickly […]
As much as he likes to catch giant catfish, there’s not much that makes four-time national catfish champion angler Phil King from Corinth happier than watching a 7-foot Cabela’s Fish Eagle spinning rod double over under the weight of a feisty channel cat.
And to hear him tell it, his happiest months of the year are April, May and June because that’s when the channel cats start backing up into the myriad cracks and crevices along Pickwick’s multitude of craggy rock banks. […]
Copyright 1998 - 2026 Mississippi Sportsman, Inc. All rights reserved.