Features from May 2018
Bluegill or redear? Cricket or worm? Wet fly or dry? Cane pole or jig pole? Fly rod or spinning rod?
Plenty of people around Mississippi believe that grabbing, noodling or hand-grabbing is the way to go when it comes to battling a big blue or flathead.
Mississippi hunters have a couple of basic choices when looking for hunting grounds: public or private land. Public land is open to anyone, and most private lands are owned by individuals, families or timber companies.
An obvious key to successfully bass fishing on a post-spawn pattern at Pickwick Lake, or any water for that matter, is knowing in what phase of the spawn the largemouth and smallmouth are at any given time.
When you ask a specialist to design a tool, they’ll likely give you a prototype with the details that matter most. That’s what Bassmaster Elite Series pro David Walker did for Z-Man when he designed the Cross EyeZ Power Finesse Jig.
After studying his depth finder, Hunter Miles made a cast in the direction of a submerged tree, working his Carolina-rigged worm into the brush top.
Columns - May 2018
- This month, I am stepping a bit outside of this column’s normal subject matter, but I feel strongly about the message.
- Unless you have been holed up in a cave with no way of communicating for the past three or four months, you are well aware that a buck discovered on Jan. 25 in Issaquena County tested positive for chronic wasting disease.
- Larger bass may be harder to catch than smaller bass because they are fewer in number and have had more time to learn to avoid anglers.
- Maynor Creek, a 500-acre lake near Waynesboro, is a Pat Harrison Waterway District lake. One of the older lakes in that group, Maynor Creek had issues with its dam almost 10 years ago. The state pulled the water level down to repair the dam.
- Regular readers of this column know there is always one turkey recipe each spring to go with the turkey season. Only once before have I added a second turkey recipe, but I'm going to do it again. It's a turkey pie, cooked in a cast-iron pan, that can be cooked in the oven or taken outside to the grill in the warming May weather. It makes a lot, too, so there will be plenty for lunches for a few days.
Some anglers refer to the plastic lip recently added to the Rapala Glass Shad crankbait as a “potato chip lip,” which is what it closely resembles.
Outdoor Updates - May 2018
- Fishermen may have started looking for cobia migrating into Mississippi waters in March and fished for them when April’s winds would allow.
- Since the first confirmed case of chronic wasting disease in Mississippi was reported in February in a 4 1/2-year-old buck in Issaquena County, no other diseased animals have been found.
- Capt. Ronnie Daniels of Pass Christian and Fisher-Man Charters was selected by Gov. Phil Bryant to serve on the Commission on Marine Resources, the panel that oversees the operations of the Department of Marine Resources.
- The Mississippi Legislature failed to pass a single bill related to hunting and fishing during the 2018 session that ended April 1, and that includes anything related to a harvest reporting system for turkey or deer.
- Mississippi’s Gulf Coast is a great place to start looking at opportunities that abound in May.
Bo Brown had little choice, the way he had it figured, but to lift up his shotgun, aim and fire at the gobbler.
- Mississippi gets its fourth-annual spring squirrel season in Mississippi in 2018, but it has yet to lure many sportsmen to participate, with most citing “too hot to hunt” as the reason.
- It could become confusing, but fishermen on Mississippi's Gulf Coast should be happy with the 2018 red snapper season announced Tuesday by the Department of Marine Resources.
Field Notes - May 2018
- It's hard to beat a Carolina rig for catching big summer trout, coastal guide Jake Scardino said.
- Not much can match the pulse-pounding thrill of a giant bass breaking the surface and engulfing a topwater frog.
- In this day and age, we have plenty of fishing reels from which to choose. They come in all sizes, shapes and types, with multiple gear-ratio options.
- Understanding flow velocity, and where water will start moving first, is a big key to locating feeding speckled trout.
- May is a great month to throw topwater lures for speckled trout all along the coast.