When limited by heat to only a few hours of quality fishing a day, the state lake system of the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks is an excellent choice.
And when it’s bass you are targeting, the hottest spot on the map is Neshoba County Lake near Philadelphia.
At 138 acres, the lake is small enough to cover all the best fishable waters in a short period of time.
“That’s the beauty of the state lakes, or at least most of them anyway,” said Bill Thomas of Meridian, who is like a walking, talking advertisement of the MDWFP system. He always purchases an annual permit to fish the state lakes. “When you are limited in your time, either because you’ve got other obligations or because it’s just so hot, you don’t have to spend a lot of time eliminating water.
“You just put in your boat, and start throwing. Within a few hours, you can find something that is working.”
Thomas, who makes the drive to Neshoba Lake at least twice a month, has caught five fish over eight pounds this year but knows there’s bigger ones to be caught.
“I’ve seen the pictures of all the 11s and 12s and 13s caught this year and I want to get one of those,” he said. “I guess I’m going to have to switch to live bait, though. I hear they are catching most of them on big shiners. All I ever use is artificial. I catch a lot, just not one of those monsters.”
In the summer, Thomas arrives early and uses frogs and buzzbaits to fish the edges of the vegetation along the channels that were cut in the upper end of the lake. Those narrow but deep channels give fish access to both shallow grass cover for early feeding and then deep water when the sun gets high.
“What I’ve found is that unless you are going to fish shiners or something like that, you better get them early,” he said. “I haven’t had much success with the bass after 9 or 10 in the morning, unless it’s overcast or rainy. I did catch one seven pounder in June when it was 100 degrees at 9:30 on a suspending jerk bait.
“Most of the rest of my fish have come between sunrise and 9. I usually have at least four rods ready, one with a frog, another with a buzzbait, one with a non-weighted Senko worm and the other with a regular Texas-rigged worm. I use the worms to follow up missed strikes on the topwaters.”
Neshoba County Lake has been in the fishing headlines all year for the big bass it has been producing, which makes perfectly good sense. The lake was closed in 2004, renovated, restocked with Florida bass and reopened in 2006. The early year classes of restocked fish are reaching full maturity, which is why so many lunkers are turning up.
During that renovation, the MDWFP worked hard on fish habitat, building several fish structures that are posted on the agency’s mdwfp.com website (following prompts through fishing to Neshoba County Lake). The GPS coordinates are provided for each spot.
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