Anyone Here Bass Fish Ross Barnett Reservoir In Mississippi

A lifetime ago I once lived and worked on the Reservoir at a now long closed down marina called "The Old Trace Marina" that was located next to the Jackson Yacht Club.

The land the marina sat on is now filled with upper end homes set in what was once raw wooded land.

I would often fish for bass with plastic worms all up and down the many piers the boats were docked at and did land my share of bass and ran a few trot lines for catching catfish.

I would sometimes run across the lake to Pelahatchie Bay and fish for bass in areas with underbrush, stumps and surface vegetation using plastic frogs, crawfish, worms, etc.

BUT------like I said, that was a lifetime ago------------like in the early 70's.


The first marina you can access the reservoir if using I-55 is to get off at County Line Rd. and head to the reservoir in Ridgeland and that is where Main Harbor Marina is located. I'm not sure if they have backdown ramps or other means to launch a boat, so you may want to call ahead.

I have wondered why there are so few professional fishermen from Mississippi? Many from Texas, some from Louisiana, Boo coo from Alabama and South Carolina and a few from Georgia. But not very many from Mississippi.

I fished a few tournaments there as a coangler about 5-6 years ago. The play was either to throw a squarebill along the rocks and docks on the southwest shoreline working up from the dam (caught a lot of nice sized spots doing this) or run north to the river and fish vegetation either punching or top water looking for a big bite.

It’s a really good sized lake and you can find what you want to fish somewhere, last I heard it wasn’t tough to get on a pattern with a lot of smaller fish but size was tough to come by. My experience was before livescope was really mainstream and it may have changed completely now.

Is it a deep water lake?

Bout average, 20ft near the dam if I recall. There’s a river channel that runs the length with some sharp drops, imagine a lot of the scoping and deep cranking happens there. It has a healthy threadfin shad population like most everywhere else so if you’re offshore that’s gonna be the pattern.

No. Quite shallow.