Drove to MS for the area known as the "Ark of Slabs" Arkabutla, Sardis, Enid and Grenada (4 lakes off I-55 corridor) last week. If you haven't been and you are a true crappie fisherman, you must put it on your bucket list. My youngest son and I stopped at Grenada and fished a few hours the first day, lake is higher than normal and we still managed our two personal best crappie as far as length goes. My PB in TX was a 2.8 lb crappie that was only 15.5" previously. But the first one my boy caught was 16.5", then I caught a 16.25" moments later. We moved up the I-55 hwy to Arkabutla the next day, on a report they were biting good there besides the lake being 9 feet over normal summer pool. We kept 14 there and the heaviest 7 were over 16 lbs, heck the two from Grenada would have been 3 lbers in the spring before the spawn. These are just average fish here to these folks in MS, nobody is going to look a 2.5 lb. fish twice. Most everyone local that you talk to that have fished these lakes for years has either caught or has a friend who has caught a 4 lber. It's like catching an 8 lb. bass on Fork, it's a good fish anywhere else; but not there. Here are a few pics from our trip and we are going to start going back more often and figure it out better. But I'm impressed on the average size!!!

The wierd thing is they have a 12" limit on crappie on these 4 COE lakes. It's a strange feeling throwing back 11 3/4" crappie believe me, especially after having a 10' limit in TX for so long. Oh, the limit is 15 fish a day per person also, but believe me when I say that's a lot of fillets because of the average size.


For reference the crappie on the bottom row, 2nd from the left is a 12" fish!!!

All he keeps asking me is, "when are we going back!"

Wow! I lived in Memphis for awhile and passed through on 55 but never fished. I'm adding to to my bucket list. Your report and several shows I have seen are unreal.

Looks like I need to go visit some family. Haven't fished over that way in many years.

Nice slabs. Good job.

I'm hopefully going to poverty point this spring and maybe Grenada and that area also sometime next year. Gotta catch up with an old college buddy that lived there for years.

That's awesome! Congrats on the pigs!!!

Here is a link if anyone is interested in past winning weights from tournaments, and articles on the left hand side of the page about different tips and techniques.

www.magnoliacrappieclub.com