For years, I've listed the big glamour species at the top of my annual list of Texas piscatorial pursuits: lunker largemouths on Lake Fork in the spring, the smashing strike of striped bass on Lake Texoma, the serious bend in my fly rod put there by a Lower Laguna Madre redfish.

These days, however, I'm mightily tempted to put another fish at the top of my yearly angling to-do list: the crappie.

Why's that? For three reasons I was reminded of a year ago: the smiles, the laughter, and the sizzle. The smile comes courtesy of my middle son Zach, a 9-year-old fish-catching machine who couldn't stop grinning on a crappie outing we took last spring with his Uncle Larry. The laughs? They came from Casey Ingold and David Brackett as we fished Bonham City Lake, catching scores of crappie in between our jokes, fishing stories, and enjoyment of the Creator's springtime outdoor world.

And the sizzle? Well, if you've ever sampled crappie filets fried in peanut oil, I think you certainly understand that one.

Whatever the reason behind your enjoyment of crappie fishing, plenty of opportunity is available this year for anglers all across Texas to catch scores of slabs.

"Overall, I'd have to give a thumbs-up for crappie anglers across the state," said Bill Provine, the chief of research and management for the inland fisheries branch of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Asked to rate the upcoming crappie fishing, he added, "I would think that it would be an A or a B this year,"

That enthusiastic outlook is due in great part to the fact that in many areas of the Lone Star State, water conditions were generally fair to good as of press time; in some parts of the state, they were actually great. In fact, only in portions of North Texas were water conditions much lower than normal.

"I think that we have good water levels in most of our East Texas lakes where crappie are a highly sought-after species," Provine offered. "Our populations are fairly consistent, especially in good water years, and I think this year will be the same."

In other words: If you've caught a good mess of crappie at a favored honeyhole in years gone by, there's a good chance that you'll be able to do the same again this spring. And keep in mind that even if the lake or lakes that you like for sacking up the slabs has gone through some lean years recently, it usually doesn't take too long for the crappie fishing glass to go from half-empty to half-full.

Speaking of crappie lakes' capacity for getting healthy fast, Provine said, "A lot of them cycle in and out on good crappie populations, especially medium-sized to smaller-sized lakes. While one year may not be so good, the next year may be very good in some of these lakes. I wouldn't mark any of them off the list just because they weren't really good for fishing last year."