“Let’s call our week fishing for big crappie in Mississippi Crappie 101,” exclaimed our police detective friend Jim Wessels after catching the biggest crappie in his fishing career!  Jim was referring to our friend, Lance Valentine’s, Walleye 101 educational schools held yearly at Lake Erie.  Tracy Hayward, Jim, and I spent September 30-October 6 fishing two of the three Army Corps of Engineers lakes south of Memphis in Mississippi.  We stayed at the Hugh White State Park Cabins on Lake Grenada.  Last year we were at the cabins on Lake Enid.  We fished Lake Grenada on Monday, Lake Enid on Tuesday and Wednesday, then back to Lake Grenada Thursday through Saturday.  The weather was extremely warm and humid–daytime temps reached the low 90’s with nighttime lows in the lower 70’s.  I was thankful I had brought along the Bimini Top for my Ranger 620 to break the sun from beating on our heads while out on the water.  Each day saw very little wind so we were sweating from morning until night!  Enid produced more numbers of fish while Grenada produced bigger fish.  We kept one fish over 12 inches long for every three or four we caught during our stay.  On Grenada, we caught some beautiful catfish along with a few stripers, too.  Our presentation was NOT like everyone we say fishing pushing “spider rigs” very slow over old creek channels or selected spots.  We used our walleye fishing tactics by trolling Berkley #7 Flicker Shads off Offshore Planer Boards moving along at 1.8 to 2.0mph.  We kept our baits in the top ten feet of the waters we fished in both lakes but did try running a couple long line rods off the back with 70-80 feet back.  Most of our fish came with the lines out 50-55 feet from the boards.  Our best FS color was “sick perch”, a Cabela’s exclusive color.  We also had good success with two Scheel’s exclusive colors, “pink shine” and “hollywood”.  I had a couple custom colors in orange along with Berkley’s “slick chartreuse pearl” those southern crappie seemed to like, too!  Our highlight of the week was helping a couple from Kentucky catch the largest crappie they’d ever caught using our tactics!  Wednesday night after dinner, we stopped at Spencer’s Dairy Kream in Grenada for a treat.  We visited with Tammie and BJ Honeycutt from Kentucky who had just completed two days with a guide on Lake Enid.  They had brought their new Ranger center counsel aluminum boat and planned to fish on their own Thursday and Friday.  They were staying at the campground on the northwest corner of Grenada.  On Wednesday, we experienced a motor problem with the Evinrude 250.  We were referred to the Crappie Depot in Batesville by a fellow angler.  Long story longer–while Tracy and I took the Ranger up Thursday morning, we “loaned” Jim, our linecounter rods, our FS baits, and our Offshore boards to BJ for the day.  While we were getting the motor repaired, Jim helped the retired law enforcement and military couple CATCH FISH!!  They came off the water mid afternoon to get out of the heat but went out on their own that evening and smacked the big crappie with several right at 16 inches long!!  We left our gear with them so they could fish using walleye tactics and caught some really nice fish!  We got our gear back from them out on the water when they decided to head off the lack and start to pack their truck camper and Ranger up for the ride home.  We believe the Honeycutt’s are “hooked” on crappie fishing in Mississippi!  We finished our week fishing Lake Grenada and observed the bite had slowed–the water surface temperature was over 86 degrees when we came off mid afternoon to clean fish and clean up the Ranger 620 for the ride home to Cedar Rapids.  We would like to thank owner Rickie Barnett at the Crappie Depot for helping us avoid an early trip home.  Please check his dealership out when your are down for lots of crappie fishing gear and a fine array of new boats set up for crappie fishing!  Also, we’d like to thank Dan Hodges with Gateway Tire & Service in Grenada for repairing a front Suburban tire which had a screw in it plus replace a trailer tire which went “south” on Thursday morning!  These two men helped save our trip from more than the usual Speicher fishing adversity!!  Tracy, Jim, and I are planning to go back next fall and I think the Honeycutts will be back, too!  We hope you enjoy this report from the “Crappie 101” school instructors and looking over the photos from our week down South!  Spike