Photo by Tom Berg

Crappie, sac-à-lait, white perch: all names for the species that, many years ago, the Louisiana legislature designated the official fish of the state.

And for good reason: Bayou State waters are home to some of the largest crappie populations in the South, which makes for unsurpassed fishing everywhere from the slow-moving bayous below Interstate 10 all the way up to the Arkansas border. Some sections of the state are still recovering from the hurricanes of 2005, but the good news for anglers in those areas is that crappie rebound quickly.

"Crappie are quite prolific and come back quickly after a drought or fish kill," said Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries biologist Bobby Reed. "They have a very fast growth rate and respond well to positive changes in their environment."

So far, areas like Lacassine Pool and the Calcasieu River have continued to produce crappie, although the fishing hasn't been as good as pre-storm years'. But by this year, the fishing should, by most accounts, have improved dramatically.

A few reports have been heard of decent crappie action in the Calcasieu area last year between Lake Charles and Deridder. Spring fishing around the cypress stumps in the bayous produced crappie up to 13 inches on live shiners fished under a cork and on small yellow/black crappie jigs "doodlesocked" around the stumps. If you see fish smacking the water, late in the evenings and early in the mornings in this area, there's a good chance that they're crappie. When the fish are up and feeding like this, try a 1/8-ounce Beetle Spin or a tiny silver spoon fished with a fast retrieve.

The Sabine River has been producing some large crappie from Nibblett's Bluff north toward Starks. That area has lots of good habitat and is often more lightly fished than are other stretches of the river.

"Concentrate your efforts around oxbows in the spring if there isn't a lot of flooding of the bottomlands," said Jerrell Huff of Starks, a veteran Sabine River crappie angler. "The fishing was good last year, with a lot of fish in the 2-pound range. The fish in that part of the river don't run really big, but you'll get a lot of solid average-sized fish."

If flood conditions prevail, Huff advised, head for the backwaters, taking the small sloughs back into the woods and then fishing open mayhaw and oak flats. "There can be a lot of crappie in those areas," he said. "The best way to catch them is to fish around the stumps with a big potbelly minnow. Shiners work well too, but the potbelly minnows that you can catch in the ditches work a whole lot better. Fishing in the backwaters is tough -- you run into a lot of snakes and stinging insects -- but it is one of the best spots to catch big crappie in that area."

Toledo Bend, nearly 100 miles upstream, is probably the most consistent crappie producer in the state. The 181,600-acre lake is full of big slab-sized crappie, which is due in no small part to an abundance of prime habitat. At press time, water levels were rising back to normal levels after more than a year of low and dangerous navigational conditions. This spring should bode well for crappie, as there was very little pressure on them last year.

Toledo's spring crappie will be along the shorelines in shallow water usually ranging from 1 to 3 feet deep. In early spring they'll be up in the buckbrush in the back of the creeks.