Sardis Lake Mississippi Crappie

[Quillback]

Fished Sardis the last 2 mornings in my uncle's boat. We trolled Bandit 300 cranks. The new minimum length for crappie is 12" at Sardis. We caught somewhere north of 100 crappie, but only 18 were keepers. It's unbelievable how many crappie there are in that lake that measure 11"-11 7/8". Maybe in a couple of months, but certainly by spring those fish will get above 12" and there's going to be a lot of limits filled.

Chatreuse was the hot color, followed by anything with pink. Stay out in the deep water, 25 - 30 fow seemed to be best.

[Guest]

I grew up fishing that mudhole.

Clear Creek has some of the best spawning habitat on that lake..

Excellent fishery, but hard to pattern due to its lack of defined creek channels and massive mud flats.

Thats a very dangerous lake when its low and the wind howls outta the SW..

I've had some close calls out there as a teenager.

[Ham]

Not at all like our water, but that area may have the best southern crappie fishing in America. I'd love to fish them in the spring sometime when conditions are right, but I had a pretty amazing spring for crappie around here.

[Quillback]

Yep that lake is a crappie factory, I'e heard something like 200,000 to 300,000 crappie are taken out of it every year. Seems to be quite few blue cats also, we picked up four blues while trolling for crappie. Not big ones, 1-2 lbs.

[Guest]

If you want HUGE crappie, then try Lake Arkabutla.

Its a smaller version of Sardis and Enid.

That 12" limit helps produce giant crappie.

Ive caught 3-4lb crappie from Arkabutla during hunting season. No joke man

[Jerry Rapp]

just thinking outloud here. Why are those lakes such crappie factories? I know back when they were new the bass fishing was very good, but you never hear about bass fishing in those lakes in anymore. Does Mississippi stock crappie every year? Is it the 12 inch limit? Or some other thing?

[Guest]

LMBV killed most of the bass in the mid 1990's..

This might have something to do with the trophy crappie boom.

However, they were stellar crappie lakes before the virus.

There's ton's of shallow cover from stump fields, standing timber, sunken brushpiles, as well as old homestead ruins.

One of my best bass fishing spots was an old stone silo that had crumbled into a circle of rubble.

There was nothing but mudflat in all directions. That rockpile held tons of bass.

I could pull in there during a tournament and catch a limit of keepers then go looking for bigguns.

These lakes are drawndown in the fall by the COE. I think this really helps the fishery.

The locals have 4 wheeler trails in every cove that have turned into roadbeds of sorts.

The fish will migrate along those same trails in the spring when the lake rises and the fish move in to spawn.

They dont have a defined creek channel to run due to heavy silt, so they follow those roadbeds.

So if you had a good gps and a 4 wheeler this winter, you could plot all the roadbeds in the entire lake.

I know guys that do that and finish very high in the bass tournaments during the spring and summer months.