2023 Mississippi Fish Camp Media Camp by Brad Wiegmann

[Slab]

Media fish camps can often be a hit or miss when it comes to weather and how good the fish are biting. The annual Mississippi Fish Camp in past years has had cold fronts and ice cold water temperatures to deal with, however, this year turned out to be sunshine and warming water temperatures which turned on some of the white bass, largemouth bass, white and black crappie population on Lake Washington. The strong winds did influence where the guides and writers fished the first day, but the wind laid down it turned out to be perfect weather the second day.

A prominent group of outdoor writers from 3 different states attended the 2023 Mississippi Fish Camp including Tim Huffman, John Felsher, Mike Giles, Keith Sutton, Dan Dannemueller Sr. and Brad Wiegmann. These writers produce content in newspaper articles, magazines, YouTube videos, podcast shows, social media post, CrappieNOW, CatfishNOW and Crappie.com websites. Many of the articles or videos you watch or read come from this camp. The local TV station, The Delta News, did a segment on the camp highlighting Bass TACTIX number one junior high and senior high female teams. The 2022-2023 Bass Tactix team is Karlee Ann Harveston and Lillie Beach from Adams County Christian School.

The only setback to the event turned out to be with the catfishing on Lake Ferguson. Mother nature decided to rain prior to the event which blew out oxbow making catfishing poor due to the conditions, however, catfish pros David Magness and Bob Crosby were still able to come up with one nice catfish for photos on a reservoir that normally is a good fishery. Truth is the writer’s crappie fishing were to be on Lake Ferguson, but due to the rising, muddy water switched gears and ended up fishing Lake Washington.

This year crappie fishing on Lake Washington turned out to be great for some of the guides and strangely slow for others. Most of the adult crappie caught during the camp weighed around 2 pounds. For most crappie anglers that’s a good crappie, but in Mississippi other reservoirs have set the bar at 3 and 4 pound crappie for big crappie. Other game fish like bass and catfish are plentiful and grow quickly in Lake Washington.



First day out I fished with crappie pro James Callaway. Callaway has been to every Mississippi Fish Camp since it started. He is renowned for pulling PICO Lures crankbaits and he may just have the largest privately owned collection of them. In addition to his current collection I had brought with me 5 of the new color patterns of PICO INT deep diving crankbaits to fish with for crappie.



“One of the key thing to do when trolling crankbaits for crappie is to get the lures away from the boat as far as possible,” Callaway continued, “Especially when the crappie are skittish or spooky of boats getting to close to them. I use Offshore Tackle planer boards to get the crankbaits away from the boat on the left and right side.”

Callaway’s method of trolling crankbaits started with setting out the planer boards from the nearest to the farthest out away from the boat. The distance from the planer board to the PICO crankbait was 8 foot. Lake Washington being a shallow reservoir and trolling in 7- to 5-foot of water an angler doesn’t need too much line out from the board to the crankbait. We put out 3 boards on each side and two long 16 foot B’n’M Poles trolling rods out the back one on each side with 16 foot of line out from the rod tip to the crankbait. On a couple of the rods Callaway had a teaser attached with a swivel above the main line. He noted that the jighead with soft plastic grub often get bites too.

“I typically troll 1.5 mph when pulling crankbaits,” Callaway went on, “How fast depends if the crappie want it slower or faster. Each day is different.” We fished for a couple hours and boated 10 crappie nine 2 pound crappie that were females and one male wearing a tuxedo; in addition to some other rough fish. That’s good considering we had to stop and shoot videos and photos too.



Dan Dannemueller Sr. aka Crappie Dan was another guide I went out with during the camp. My list of topics to cover with him was Trophy Graph Systems electronic marine mounts that he has on his boat, PICO crankbaits and Bobby Garland soft plastics. After shooting some photos and videos it was time to get fishing with what little time we had left. Casting out a slip bobber rig Dannemueller caught a couple crappie around some cypress tree, but then it was time to head in.

Joey Cook aka Transducer Doctor and Mike Meeks with Slabbin Mike’s Crappie Fishing were also crappie guides during the event; in addition to being guests on The Fishing Guide Podcast show. Cook’s transducer repair company is in high demand as cutting a transducer cable seems to be a common issue with Garmin LiveScope or Lowrance ActiveTarget and the cost of repair is around one-fourth of buying a new transducer.


Terry Bates and Dakota Fleming were the bass fishing guides for the event. Both fished on Lake Washington. Bates took out the Delta NEWS TV crew and youth female team of Karlee Ann Harveston and Lillie Beach from Adams County Christian School. Although they didn’t get lots of bites they did catch a few and had a great time out on the water.



Switching boats over to Fleming on the water happened about mid-day. Fleming was positioned on a point waiting for us to come over and drop me off. As I got into Fleming’s boat he said, “I have been waiting because this point is loaded with fish for you to come get videos and photos.” Fleming was right he caught a white bass on his first cast and proceeded to catching one after another quickly. After several we switched lures to some of the new color patterns of PICO INT deep diving crankbaits and were catching them as fast as both of us could cast out. I can say that PICO Beach Ball and Christmas Tree were the hot colors.

First night of the writer’s camp was special as they traveled over to Leland, MS. to visit the Mississippi Wildlife Heritage Museum (www.mswildlifeheritagemuseum.com) and Expo. The museum preserves the history, heritage and traditions of hunting, fishing and the great outdoors in Mississippi; in addition to honoring the people that have been a part of it along with educating the public the vast natural resources in the state of Mississippi.


Guides attending the media fish camp stayed at Silver Stone in Glenn Alan and Southern Star RV in Chatham; in addition the writers stayed at Esperanza Outdoors/Linden Plantation. The list of camp sponsors is long, but special thanks goes go out to Greenville and Washington County tourism (www.visitgreenville.com) and Visit Mississippi (www.visitmississippi.org).

[SuperDave336]

Good article and pics. Thanks for sharing

[BuckeyeCrappie]

Great article! Awesome pics too. Thanks for sharing this with us

[Retired2Fish]

Good read and pics. Thanks for posting.

[Jamesdean]

Thank you for taking the time to share with us...

[wannabe fisherman]

[M R Dux]

I’m glad my Beachball pattern is helping others catch big crappie. It’s been good for me for years.


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