with tricky weather

By Eddie Roberts

The timing of the spring cold fronts we’re experiencing continues to make it difficult to catch fish on the weekends.

This weekend was no exception. A cold front came through on Friday bringing high winds and lower temperatures. Before the cold front, surface water temps range from 68 to 75 degrees.

The water temps will fall a few degrees, but the overall average temperatures has increased by 10 degrees since mid-March.

This translates into good news. The crappie and bass spawn is wide open, and the bream have moved up.

This weekend the baitfish that were holding near the surface moved down the water column after the front passed. That means we had to fish a little deeper and slower.

After a couple days of sunshine, the baitfish will move back to the surface layer and resume feeding, and you can speed up your presentation.

This is a common occurrence when confronted with post-frontal conditions.

You can be on some nice fish and a spring cold front passes, the barometric pressure rises and the fish refuse to bite a fast moving or surface lure.

The best move the bass fishermen can make bass is to pick up a pitching rod armed with a jig, tube or some type soft plastic. For crappie, try downsizing your line and lure.

The crappie is very picky after a cold front.

Instead of 8-pound test line, try a 6- or even 4-pound line. If you’re jig fishing, tie on a 1/64th ounce jig head instead of the common 1/32 and 1/16th jig heads.

If you’re fishing with shiners, use the smallest shiners you can find.

The Mississippi River stage dropped to a very unusual stage this past week and some good fish were caught at Deer Park, Minorca and Lake Mary.

These live oxbow lakes receive very little fishing pressure in the spring because the fluctuation water crated by the Mississippi River.

Some good bass and crappie were caught near the drains and ditches this past week. This may be on those you-should-have-been-here-yesterday fish stories because the river started rising yesterday.

The gauge at Natchez reads 30.4 feet today. By Wednesday we’ll be looking at 33 feet, and the rise will continue. That will slow things down on the Old Rivers for sure.

Our area land-locked lakes are producing some nice bass, crappie and a few bream. The best reports on the crappie are coming from Turkey Creek, Wallace Lake Horseshoe and Larto Lakes.

The bass fishing is great on Turkey Creek, too, if you know where to find them.

This lake is loaded with cypress trees, and it is very easy to get lost on the water when fishing Turkey Creek.

As spring progresses and boat traffic increases, so will the amount of trash in our lakes and along the highways leading to the marinas.

Please put your trash where it belongs and not in our lakes.

Eddie Roberts writes a weekly fishing column for The Natchez Democrat. Reach him at

fishingwitheddie@highstream.net