Ten days since I last fished. This afternoon I had it all planned. The major feeding period was around 5:00, I’d get to the lake at 4:00 and load the boat. Right. I was on Lake Chicot at 4:00 and went straight to a spot where the fish have been schooling. There were plenty of shad around and plenty of least terns diving on them.  Not a schooling fish to be seen. That’s OK, I’ll just wait them out. Up and down that stretch I went. No fish chasing shad, not even a nervous shad. Before leaving that spot, I “dipped and dunked”, as Richard calls it around a dock with a shaky head. Did not feel a thing, but my line moved off to the side a little. Up came the first fish.  I always try to do something I’ve never done in a lake where I don’t fish much so I put on a 6XD and visited the deep side. There is a great drop off from 7 – 8 feet to 20 just past the end of the docks. I got my exercise for the day but caught no fish along a 300 yard stretch. Fished another dock or two catching another fish and then returned to the “good” spot. Still no activity and no bites. One thing I have learned this terrible fishing year. If it’s not going on and not getting better, don’t beat a dead horse, just go home. I hate to give up, but go home I did at 6:30.

Mickey and I went to Chicot this afternoon and started fishing after 2:00. We went to the spot where I caught fish last time I went to that lake. Nothing was happening . We fished along a stretch of bank with our eyes peeled looking for activity.  After catching a lonesome tighteye, we finally spotted the smallest amount of bass chasing shad. The least terns were circling and dropping on the shad also. We had a little flurry catching the fish on a redeye shad but then someone turned off the switch and they quit. We tried shaky heads with no results.  A new spot was in order so we hit out for the squirrel log. Not much happening there but we did catch one on a worm. Back to the tern spot where we caught nothing. In hunting for a new spot we took a long ride down toward the East end of the lake. We tried a few places down there but did not get a bite. The tern spot yielded one more on the way back before we headed for the ramp. I’ve learned this summer in the bad fishing conditions that when things aren’t working it’s time to quit. We ended up with 7 bass.

Oxbow problems: Short term or long term?
Tough bass fishing concerns some, accepted by others
Bobby Cleveland
1

August 07 at 9:00 am | Mobile Reader | Pring this storyPrint

Fall fishing is when oxbow lakes peak, and will provide the best look at the health of the fishery. The big largemouth stack around structure, like a point where a spring empties in the lake, which is where Sidney Montgomery found this fat one.
Bobby Cleveland
Fall fishing is when oxbow lakes peak, and will provide the best look at the health of the fishery. The big largemouth stack around structure, like a point where a spring empties in the lake, which is where Sidney Montgomery found this fat one.
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Bass fishermen struggling through a poor year on Mississippi River oxbow lakes are beginning to question why catch rates are far below average years.

Others, like Dan Smith of Ridgeland, have a pretty good idea why largemouth aren’t biting and veteran fisheries biologist John Skains, who has long worked the oxbows, agrees.

Said Smith: “When we have water levels as high as we’ve had this late, and, then, when the river does fall, it does so so fast that it drops right through the prime levels at two feet a day, You aren’t going to catch many bass if you can catch any bass.”

Added Skains: “The conditions just haven’t been right for a good bite this year. And when the bottom drops out like it has in recent weeks, forget it. Fish are hard to find or pattern, and even if you were able to find them, they’re usually not in the mood to bite. They don’t like it falling like that.”

But that isn’t satisfactory for other fishermen, like longtime oxbow fisherman Joe Pettway, who is having what he calls a horrible year. He fears the poor season could be a sign of deeper problems.

“A bass tournament at Yucatan (a connected oxbow on Louisiana side) on Aug. 2 yielded only one bass, and that was 18 boats with 36 fishermen,” said Pettway of Vicksburg. “Louisiana wildlife officers told fishermen that all oxbows were having oxygen level concerns and all of the game fish were in deep water until the river stops falling so fast.

“My concern is that fish were not there through all the stages, and I am concerned that the low water that we had last year has caused this abnormality in our oxbows. Chotard, Yucatan, Palmyra, all have been terrible so far yielding only a handful of fish. I am a fisherman that has spent 40 years on these oxbows. I have always been able to put a few in the boat.”

Skains didn’t rule out the oxygen problem, but has his doubts.

“If we were talking landlocked oxbow lakes in the Delta, like Bee, Wolf or Eagle, then yes, low oxygen levels are an annual problem,” the biologist said. “I have never seen it being a problem in the oxbows connected to the river, at least not until the river falls out. I’d bet it’s more a situation where fish have just been harder to find this year due to different conditions, especially the last few weeks when the bottom started falling out of the river.”

Bite never materialized

Smith had hopes last week when he saw one river level forecast that showed the fall slowing from an average of between 1.5 to 2 feet a day to just a few inches. The forecast later changed and the rapid fall continued.

“We knew the fall was coming and coming fast, but originally they said the brakes would come on last week,” said Smith, whose favorite fishing each year is that magic summer day when everything comes together on Albermarle, which is connected to the river by Chotard Lake. “When the river is falling slowly through the mid 20s on the Vicksburg gauge, that’s prime time. They come out of the flooded timber and stack on that roadbed on the upper end of Albermarle.

“I’m afraid the magic number has done gone and went for that roadbed, and the river was dropping too fast for the fish. Looks like we missed it this year.”

OK. Let’s stop for a minute. It’s not like the year is over. Oxbows are at their best in the fall months, when the levels are stable.

Bass fishermen should still get some good fishing in on the oxbows, especially those two connected lakes north of Vicksburg. Skains thinks so.

But that ridiculous bite Smith refers to that happens when the water hits a certain level, about 25 feet at Vicksburg, and is on a slow to moderate fall — half a foot or less a day, didn’t happen.

Is the best yet to come?

Let’s hope so. The falling river level should work for fishermen, once it slows. Fishermen then simply follow the fish, which are following the shad as they get pulled toward the river. Structure like points, boat ramps, springs and steep banks with timber offer great action.

Has his doubts

Pettway fears that strategy won’t work this year, not based on what he’s seen.

“I fish the current, where oxygen has never been in question, points with current running over and around them, roadbeds and culverts, all of these places have held fish when other places would be dead,” he said. “That to me means the low oxygen content is just an easy way of saying ‘we don’t know’ what’s wrong with the lakes, but something is.”

Further proof, Pettway said, is in other species.

“The white bass are not schooling like they have in previous years,” he said. “They used to be a nuisance, now they would be welcomed.”

Doubting a bass angler with as much experience as Pettway is never easy, but then my history of 40 years of covering outdoors tells me not to jump to conclusions.

Fishermen are quick to look for any reason that explains why they aren’t catching fish, before accepting that the fish are simply winning the game this year.

I sure hope that’s the case here. Tracking the fall bite will give us the answer.

THE BITESPOT’S VOTE IS ON THE OXYGEN when the water first covered all the low water vegetation.

Mickey and I went to Lake Ferguson today just to see if lowering the water level helped with the fish numbers. First off, with the water level just right, we first went to the “Mickey’s 70 spot” where a couple of years ago he sat in one place and caught 70. It is one of the first spots we visit on a fishing trip because of the success we have had there. Today we did catch 1 there and ran off the skunk that has lurked in the bushes on a lot of fishing trips lately. We caught one other fish on a trip from 5 to 7:30 in the afternoon. I hate to admit defeat, but Lake Ferguson has whipped me. In stock market parlance, it has hit my sell stop. That is when you buy a stock and it goes down instead of up. When it reaches the point you can’t stand the pain of losing any more you bail and sell. I have reached that point, and judging by the low number of  boats on the lake many other people have too. I have heard of people catching a few bass, maybe 5 decent fish, but have heard of no one loading the boat. What ever has happened it has not affected the jumping carp. They are plentiful. I’m off for greener pastures, and I’m not talking about the golf course.

The low water then high water malady, whatever it is, continues to affect anything connected to the river. I went to the private hole this afternoon about 4:00 and fished until 7:00 catching 4 fish, 2 on Ribbits and 2 on a hydra headed Senko swim. I call it  hydra headed, because if you look closely at the photo you can see the skirt like appendages on the head of the bait. It resembles the many headed monster in Greek Mythology that was slain by Hercules.On the shaky head it looks almost like a jig with a long swimming tail. All of the appendages slow the fall of the bait and the tail swims on the fall.

I bought them on a guess and I’m really beginning to like them. The private hole is primed for the future. There are 4 inch bass swimming everywhere as well as small bream. What I saw today that makes me optimistic is millions of shad. They swam by the boat in droves and they were showing up on the depth finder. The future is fine but after fishing in some great spots and not getting a bite, spots where at this water level you can sit in one spot and catch 15 or more, I’m going to take my boat out of there . I really don’t know where I’m going to put it because every place to fish around there is connected to the river one way or another. By the way the FOD was 4-9 and was caught on the Senko in the first 20 minutes.