Last weekend there was an open singles bass tournament held out of Neely’s Spokane Resort on Lake St. John.

The air temperature was near freezing when the 18 contestants took off at 6:15 a.m. The water temp was 53 degrees. It was cloudy, windy and the fish were biting.

Danny Smith of Clayton, La., pitched a CrawGator Jig and cast a Rat-L-Trap to land first place with a heavy five-bass tournament limit weighing 19.10 pounds.

Smith said he caught over 30 bass by targeting the deeper cypress trees with the jig and cranking the Trap in the flats between the piers.

John Bruce of Vidalia struggled throughout the day and only had four small bass in the livewell with an hour left to fish.

Not one to give up, Bruce pitched a CrawGator Jig down to the wire and persistence paid off.

With only minutes remaining, Bruce set the hook hard and promptly boated a huge Lake St. John lunker, his personal record bass from this lake. The big fish pushed the scales down to an even 7 pounds.

Combined with the four runts swimming in the livewell, his five-bass limit weighed 14.24 pounds good enough for a sec ond place finish. Bruce won the big bass pot with the 7 pound fish.

Jerry Riddle of Brookhaven landed third place with 12.94 pounds.

There were a couple of more 10-pound plus limits weighed in, and several contestants reported missing a hook-set or breaking off a good fish.

Most of the bass were caught in fairly shallow water, but that will change as the water gets colder and the bass move deeper.

On Dec. 27 there is an open singles bass tournament set for Lake Bruin out of Lake Bruin Marina. The entry fee is $20 per person with a $5 optional big bass pot.

One hundred percent of all entries will be returned to the winners. You can enter the morning of the tournament at Lake Bruin Marina.

Lake Bruin is in great shape for bass and crappie fishing. On Saturday the Concordia Bass Club held its final event of the year on Bruin, but this column will go to print before I can give you report.

I’ll cover the results of that tournament event next week.

Eddie Roberts writes a weekly fishing column for The Natchez Democrat. You can reach him at

fishingwitheddie@highstream.net.