Catch, Clean and Cook Adventures Fish Camp - Brad

Over the years outdoor media camps have evolved from bringing in freelance outdoor writers to company media promotions. The result is content that revolves around the sponsors products or pros. Catch, Clean and Cook Adventures fish camp is a throwback to old media camps, but use social media and other traditional media to promote the lakes, sponsored companies, guide services, professional anglers, restaurants, lodging host and more.


The most recent Catch, Clean and Cook Adventures fish camp took place on Lake Washington in Chatham, Mississippi. Located in the northwest area of Mississippi and one of the popular angling destinations. Lake Washington is perfect for hosting a fishing camp. Linden Plantation/Esperanza Outdoors, Inc. has provided lodging for media while Silverstone on the Lake have provided lodging for fishing guides and pros. Both lodging venues are centrally located allowing for easy access to any area of the lake.


When it comes to fishing Lake Washington offers a wide variety of species to target, however, crappie is what most anglers are fishing for there. The crappie population was excellent in years past; however, it seemed to decline around CO-VID although it seems to be recovering now. Last year around the time of the fish camp writers, media, pros and guides caught several of the 3 pound range crappie while this year there seemed to be a healthy population of keeper crappie caught. On Lake Washington a keeper crappie must measure 11 inches or longer.


How is the media selected for the camps? Every camp has media come that produce content for print, social media, websites, YouTube channels and podcast shows. It’s a revolving door of media that changes each fish camp. The Mississippi Catch, Clean and Cook Adventures recent camp had Polly Dean Watkins and Jimmy Jacobs that produce content for the On the Fly website, Mike O. Giles a freelance writer from Mississippi, Bill Cooper a freelance outdoor writer, podcast show host for Outside Again Adventures TV, Mike Jones with Big Mike Jones Enterprises along with Brad and Judy Wiegmann owners of Brad Wiegmann.com who are videographers/photographers/FAA certified drone pilot for aerial/producers of the YouTube shows on Catch, Clean and Cook Adventures. In the past years the camp has had John N. Felsher, Ken Perrotte, Ken McBroom, Kenneth Kieser, and influencer Kendall Frederick.


The Mississippi fish camp has had numerous fishing guides and pro anglers attend the camp. Everyone from Grenada guide Tim Howell, Arkansas Crappie Ninja James Callaway, Jerry McCready, Greg Robinson, Will Hutto, Mark Hamilton, Jerry Gross, Terry Bates, Dakota Fleming, Chris Johnson, Jason and Renee Clements and even the owner of PICO Lures Mitch Glenn. The list of guides and pros from Oklahoma is impressive and includes Slabbin’ Mike Meeks, Anthony Owen, Joey Cook “The Transducer Doctor”, Jack Nichols and The Crappie Cowboy. Richard Parker owner and director of Bass Tactix Outdoors along with youth anglers also come to the event. Every year the guides and pros coming to the event changes with some that have helped out every year.


Every year the sponsor list grows, but several have been there since the first camp in Mississippi including Greenville-Washington County Mississippi Convention and Visitors Bureau, Visit Mississippi along with lure companies like PICO Lures. It’s a long list of Sponsors, but without their assistance the camp won’t happen.


It’s interesting to see the different techniques the guides and pros use to catch fish. The anglers from Oklahoma love to fish Lake Washington. It’s a smaller reservoir and can be figured out quickly especially by these talented anglers.


While most of the crappie guides and pros use forward facing sonar the Crappie Ninja James Callaway trolls PICO crankbaits. Callaway often uses a jig/trailer rigged above the crankbait when trolling. His plan to catching crappie is to have as many rods out as possible and use planer boards to keep them from tangling.


“I use planer boards to keep all the lines from tangling, but I really think the crappie scatter when the boat gets close to them and the crappie move away to where the planer boards are,” Callaway continued, “I might have up to 4 planer boards out on each side of the boat to increase my odds of catching them.” Some years Callaway seems to get on the right bite and catch big crappie trolling even though it’s early to be trolling crankbaits which is more of a hot summertime bite.


Catch, Clean and Cook Adventures is now holding fish camps in other states including Missouri. “The Lake of the Ozark #2024LOZFishCamp was extremely successful with a large number of media, guides and pros all fishing on the Lake of the Ozarks,” Wiegmann continued, “This year we are planning more fish camps in other states and will continue to grow. The most exciting thing this year was the YouTube channel Catch, Clean and Cook Adventures show we did about the Mississippi fish camp that had footage from each day plus the trip over to the Mississippi Wildlife Heritage Museum, aerial videography and on the water footage.” In the end, each fish camp produces content that can be found everywhere from print, social media sites, websites and YouTube channels.