Photo by Keith Sutton.

I had my sights on the Stowe Creek area of Lake D’Arbonne, believing that what I’d just encountered on Ross Barnett Reservoir in Mississippi would also work on my home lake in Louisiana.

I slipped my boat off the trailer and slowly motored my way under the bridge and up the channel, keeping an eye on the scattered cypress trees draped with Spanish moss. I had a hunch that the swollen boles and cypress knees next to the trees offered the crappie for which I had come.

Cutting the engine, I lowered the trolling motor and eased up to a cypress standing in 2 feet of water. My crappie pole was strung with line colored gold, a hue I’d chosen to enable me to detect even the slightest twitch indicating a bite.

Tied to the end of the line was a blue and white tube jig -- just the type and color that had worked so well two days before in Mississippi.

The Ole Miss Rebels and the LSU Tigers may not see eye to eye on the football field, but the same cannot be said for the fat and feisty crappie to which both states lay claim. The twitch on the line under the Stowe Creek cypress was exactly the same as the twitch I detected on Ross Barnett, and soon I was experiencing the fight of a fat crappie.

March is the time of year that sees crappie perpetuating the species. Once conditions are right in early spring, the spawn is on, and the most exciting fishing of the year heads into overdrive.

West Monroe crappie fishing expert Bobby Phillips believes that water temperature is one of the most important parts of the puzzle in catching springtime crappie. “Once water temperatures reach the upper 50s, provided other factors such as the passage of a cold front, heavy rain and such are absent, look for the fish to be headed for the shallows to begin spawning,” he said. “Weather changes affect the fish and determine where they’ll be. A period of stable weather where the water temperatures rise pushes the fish to the shallows. A spring cold front comes through and they move. They don’t leave the area; they just push back to deeper water. The spawning urge is on and they’re not going to move very far from where they want to spawn. Once the water temperature approaches 58 degrees, you might find them in a foot of water.”

It’s a well-established fact throughout Louisiana that crappie head for the shallows to spawn in spring. What lakes provide some of the best chances to spend a day enjoying a slugfest with one of the most popular game fish swimming in Louisiana’s waters? We sought out some experts around the state to answer that very question -- and to improve your perch-jerkin’ this spring.