Winter is lunker time

Mississippi’s biggest fish come during coldest months

It was a warm winter’s day, the last one of 1992 in fact, when Anthony Denny saw the telltale sign of a big bass making a feeding run on some shad in a cove on the lake at Natchez State Park.

“I just saw a swirl,” Denny said, “so, I made a cast.”

Wearing a short-sleeve T-shirt and an unbuttoned flannel shirt, Denny launched his Rogue jerk bait in that direction. There was not a lot of work to be done, not when the water was only about two to three feet.

“I gave it a twitch or two and a little jerk and wham!” he said.

A few minutes later, the carpenter, who lives very near the 250-acre lake, was holding a bass that remains the biggest ever caught in the state of Mississippi — 18.15 pounds.

The New Year’s Eve catch broke the existing record by nearly four pounds and maybe, just maybe, Denny’s bass may have set the bar too high for anyone to beat.

Only one fish has come close. Jeff Foster of Tupelo caught a 17.34-pounder 20 years and four days later (Jan. 3, 2012) at Davis Lake near Houlka.

Wait! Whoa! Hold on a minute.

Mississippi has had two giant bass, and both were caught at New Year?

Yep, as incredible as it sounds, it is true — Dec. 31 and Jan. 3.

Both were large females from lakes located on the Natchez Trace that had been drained and stocked with Florida bass about 10 years earlier. Neither fish had started building their egg sacks that only a few months later would have added significant weight to their bellies.

But that is about where the similarities of the two catches end.

Different conditions

Denny’s fish was caught in the extreme Southwest part of the state on a very warm summer day when temperatures topped 70 degrees and lured the baitfish shallow at Natchez State Park. The lake is extremely deep for its size with some 40-feet depths in the creek channel and a lot of standing timber in 20-plus feet of water.

Foster’s fish was caught in the Northeast corner of Mississippi on a blustery cold day when temperatures started in the upper 30s and never made it to 50. The angler said as uncomfortable as that sounds, it was almost too good for Davis Lake.

“We always seem to do our best on cold and miserable days, but today was kind of nice,” he said. “It was cold early but got up to like 48 or 49 and the wind was tolerable.”

Foster’s fish came on a shaky-head rig fished near the connection of a ditch and creek, in 17 to 20 feet of water. He called his technique “slow and deliberate.”

Denny caught his fish on the Rogue, after having seen the surface swirl. The cove ranged 2 to 4 feet in the area.

“Tells me that if anyone is going to break that record, then winter is the time to do it and particularly later in the winter,” said George Tanner of Jackson, who targets big fish. “I don’t even start thinking giant bass until it starts getting cold. Once all my buddies go deer hunting, I start fishing.”

Like a lot of modern-day lunker chasers, Tanner targets private lakes where trophy management is practiced. That’s the kind of water that has produced his two biggest catches, 15.4 and 14.1, both in winter.

“If I recall correctly, the biggest one was caught on the first day of winter, Dec. 21 or 22 in 2011, and it was cold as all get out,” Tanner said. “I fished a shaky-head on a drop with stumps that fell from 8 feet on top to about 16 to 20 feet on bottom. I got one bite all day.”

Fishing alone, Tanner never even got a photo of the fish.

“I weighed it on my digitals and let her go, because I knew as cold as it was, she had a great chance of surviving a quick release,” he said. “I had left my cell phone in the car and getting her back in the water was more important to me than the photo.”

Tanner’s other big fish, the 14.1, was caught in late February in another private lake in the Jackson area.

“Another cold day, but she took one of those suspending jerk baits, a Pro Pointer 100 I think, that I was working slow, very slow along the dam in a 200-acre lake,” he said. “Unlike that 15-pounder, this one was starting to get fat with eggs. I let her go, too.”

Public or private?

Tanner definitely believes the record is within reach, and thinks he knows why it has taken so long.

“Just a matter of time,” he said. “I think the reason why the record has taken that long to break is that we just don’t have that many people fishing when the big fish are most vulnerable and at their biggest size. Both days I caught my big fish, I was the only boat on the lakes I was fishing.

“The proof is there, through the 18 and 17 pounders, that winter is the time to get a giant one, and obviously it could come on any kind of day, warm and mild or cold and miserable.”

The other ingredient, the lake, is where Tanner has doubts.

“I am beginning to think that maybe I am wrong about a private lake being the best chance,” he said. “It’s hard to find one big enough with deep water to support the kind of shad base that seems necessary. You look at Natchez State Park, and I used to fish there a lot in its hay day, and you see all that deep cover… I mean deeeeeeep cover. On public lakes, you see fishermen fishing and taking home fish.

“I have access through networking to some of the best private lakes in the state and, yes, they have big quality fish, and they have pretty strict management rules they think will produce big fish. But what I see happening is that most of them get over-populated when people don’t take enough fish and the bass population either stunts and it fills up with small fish or it reaches the point where the lakes just hit a peak at about 13 or 14 pounds and they just don’t get any bigger.”

With that in mind, Tanner has a new plan for the coming winter of 2014-15 — fish more public water.

“I’ve got a few spots in mind, beginning with Lake Calling Panther near Crystal Springs,” he said. “I know that those original fish ought to be hitting their peak and that lake has so much standing timber and deep water that a high percentage of the original stocking have never been hooked.

“I think Lake Okhissa at Bude (and Homochitto National Forest) has very good potential and should have some fish moving into their peak years. That’s such a big, deep lake that it will require a great deal of luck at being in the right place at just the right time.

“Third, I guess I’m going to have make a trip to Philadelphia to fish Neshoba County Lake. It’s small and it’s shallow but it has been spitting out 12s, 13s and 14s pretty regularly the last few years so it could happen.

“And, finally, I’m going to Davis Lake. I have never been but I’d be stupid not to make the trip, make a weekend out of it and hope I catch a really, really cold weekend.”