Thread: 3/20 at the Rez

Good looking catch. I only used jigs and fished the ledges in 13 to 15 fow.

I started with that exact pattern too on Monday and zeroed out on keepers. Before the weekend that was the depth I had found them in. Definitely spring now. Here one day and gone the next, I love the game though.


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Much respect to you Knight, but in my humble opinion I have to disagree. The Rez has never been a secret and looking back several decades I dare to presume that it has received more press than any other lake in the state. She is the long time home of MCC and has been the topic of countless literary reviews since such famed outdoor writers as Bobby Cleveland and Paul Johnson started putting ink to paper. Heck the entire B.A.S.S franchise was started on her shores. Maybe it's her location, though she is situated at the confluence of two major interstates making her conveniently accessible, that shields her from the out of state fisherman looking to make their pilgrimages to the deep south crappie Mecca. I can't deny that it would tough for me to pass up the Big 4 and Washington and continue another two hours south to the capital city especially if I already drove several hours just to hit the state line. Even people coming from the west have to pass up D'arbonne to get here. In my opinion she is the one lake in the state that was conceptualized, designed, built, and managed as a recreation destination with fishing being a priority on that list. She has everything at her advantage. The things that deal blows to the other lakes in the state, things that take half a decade to restore, don't affect her. She doesn't flood from the MS river, she doesn't see drastic water level fluctuation throughout the year and especially the spawn, she has the appropriate size in her favor to support heavy pressure, she has untold amounts of shallow neigh unacceptable backwater areas to sustain healthy spawns regardless of how hard she is hit. Unlike the Big 4, the MDWFP and state biologists are able to have almost complete control to bend her to their will(data). The best thing that the Big 4 could do, however unlikely, to maintain those lakes at there current high level of super healthy fish is to coordinate with the Corp and regulate the water levels during the spawning season, but as flood control lakes that would go against there initial design. Washington may suffer simply because she may not have the size to support sustained heavy pressure. Barnett, however, already sees the heaviest pressure in a calendar year than any other lake in the state. Without posting 18+ pound stringers in all the national crappie tours(which usually shun the lake anyways) I don't see the interest peaking. If the hordes haven't come yet I do not see them coming now. If anything the northern lakes eased the pressure off of Barnett when their names went viral and began to appear on the tips of every anglers tongues.

Now I can't stand the ghosts( people who come here to just glean information without contributing to the forum in any way) as much as anybody else here but to not post my reports because of this seems too much like a preacher who locks his church doors on Sunday morning to keep sinners from entering his hallowed halls. I am here to help the ones who want it and the rest be *ahem* darned. Would we keep the gospel a secret to protect it from ridicule? Would we keep a church a secret for fear that we couldn't find a seat on a pew. I know it is a stretch to bring religion into the discussion as an allegory to this topic but fishing and the outdoors is a religious experience for me. How can we entice people to join our ranks if we ostracize them from the get go. Granted, I am in no way sponsored or reimbursed by this site for my posts or by the amount of new members which may join us because of them, nor do I hold myself in such high literary esteem to believe that I hold the editorial skill to bring such an influx with my writing, but I find a tangible intrinsic value from helping out other fisherman as I was helped. Now, like anyone I have my own hard found honey holes and I'm not just giving those coordinates out but I will gladly help others to find their own through the thought process which I reached to help initially find mine.

Lastly, through years of fishing and several years of running a guide boat myself(bluewater big game, not crappie fishing), I find more and more that I derive increasing pleasure from helping people be successful on the water than I do from my own successes, much as a coach derives pleasure when his athlete succeeds on the field, and I have found that writing about my exploits in such a manner brings me as much joy as the fishing adventure itself. Maybe if I payed as much attention to my academics in creative writing class as I did the to hypnotic blond curls sitting in the desk in front of me I could have been more successful with a literary career but alas, I can only deal with the here and now and to do it all over again, I would still probably only see the chalkboard as a blurry out of focus backdrop staged unimportantly behind the lovely girl who sat in front of me and my best attempts at poetry would have been read aloud only when the teacher intercepted the note I was passing her.

I apologize for the length of this post, clearly I am back on my ship and the isolation of the sea and long watches in the dark spark my imagination and dull my sense of when to let a sleeping dog lie.

Also, Knightshadow, I do not write this as a response to your comment but as a response to the general feeling that has pervaded our state forum and I do not mean to single you out, I hold you and your opinions in high esteem still. I hope to see you at spring camp!


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Well said my friend

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Well said. There are two sides to every post. My comment stands on its own...I have seen what can happen. As I get older, I am just thankful to get a day out on the water. Hope to see you soon..I for one, appreciate your efforts, and wish you the best in all your endeavors.