Mississippi’s best 5 August fishing trips

So what if it’s hot? If the fish are biting, fishermen barely notice the waterfalls of sweat cascading down their bodies, seemingly from every pore. Try any of these proven “hot” spots in August for a productive day on the water.

Bull reds in the Gulf of Mexico

The hardest thing about catching redfish in August along Mississippi’s barrier islands is finding keeper fish. Seriously, the schools of reds swimming in the Gulf are full of the big, bull reds, and with the state limit being three with only one exceeding 30 inches, it’s tough to fill a fish box on a trip.

“But if you’re in it for fun, there’s nothing better than a day of chasing the bulls, hooking up on light tackle, and then battling the beast for anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour,” said Bill Ladner of Pass Christian. “What’s great about it is that the schools are so big that everybody on the boat can be hooked up at once. That’s when the open cockpit, center console boats are preferred, and the dance can be exciting and highly entertaining.”

Ladner said his group usually starts on the south side of Ship Island and will watch for big birds diving. The birds will often either be over a school of bulls or speckled trout, diving to feed on the same bait the fish are. Any kind of lure will work, but a topwater plug just adds to the excitement.

Blue cats, Mississippi River

From the Tennessee border south to Woodville, the Big Muddy provides Mississippi anglers so many opportunities to catch a trophy cat of a lifetime, or to simply fill a freezer with “eater-sized” cats with a single day on the river. Most Augusts, the river is stable, the temperature is at its highest, and that works in the fisherman’s favor to concentrate big blues in deep water next to shallower feeding areas.

“The perfect spot is where you have a big bend in the river that creates both a deep (outside bend) and shallow (inside bend) area,” said Phil Rawlings of Vicksburg. “You can toss out a bunch of jugs at varying depths and toss them out upstream of the bend and let them float down in the lazy current. In the meantime, you have the option of parking on a sandbar on the inside bend and tight-lining with cut shad, or positioning the boat in the deeper outside bend and fishing deeper. Every hour or two, you can run check the jugs and keep track of the devices. By the end of the day, you can have all you care to clean.”

Rawlings also recommends fishing any area below where a tributary is flowing into the river.

“Look for where the water is mixing, and fish right there,” he said, adding, “and hold on tight.”

Crappie, Grenada Lake

Grenada Lake’s renowned crappie fishing doesn’t end after the spawn.

This is a fun trip in the summer, both because it’s productive for slab crappie and also because it involves trolling to keep the air moving and can be done just as easily from under a canopy top.

“We use a pontoon boat, listen to music, plug in a portable fan, stay under the shade, and reel in the fish when they bite one of our Bandit crankbaits,” said Gerald Townsend of Greenwood. “It’s a great way to spend the day.”

Townsend trolls with multiple light-action baitcasting rods spooled with 10-pound mono and a variety of either Bandit 300 and/or 200 series crankbaits.

“We use 10-pound, because we’ve established a depth that we can get out of our crankbaits, and it stays consistent,” he said. “We adjust the depth by the amount of line we let out. The depth we need is determined by the fish on our electronics.”

Black bass, Pickwick Lake

We’d be negligent in our duty to omit this giant TVA lake in extreme northeast Mississippi. Pickwick is famous for its midday bass bite in the hottest times of the year.

Why?

“When people are turning down their thermostats on their home air conditioners, TVA revs up the turbines at the dam to produce the electricity needed,” said guide Roger Stegall of Iuka. “When all turbines are turning, it produces a lot of current, and that creates a feeding frenzy on Pickwick. You find a productive hump in 10 to 15 feet of water, and you’re subject to catch a largemouth, smallmouth or spotted bass on any cast. The hotter the weather, the hotter the fishing. Just take lots of sunscreen, bottled water and get after it.”

Popular lures include Carolina-rigged soft plastics, a jig-and-grub combo and deep-running crankbaits.

“And if you ever want to try the Alabama rig, this is a place to do it,” Stegall said.

Crappie, Barnett Reservoir

With the advent of advanced electronics such as live scopes, crappie have few places they can hide on the 33,000-acre lake, which is that’s loaded with old timber.

“It has been a game changer for sure,” said Bill Rooker of Jackson. “It’s unreal how much easier it makes finding fish, big fish, and then catching them. It may never replace trolling as the best summer tactics on some lakes, but on Barnett, where there is so much cover in deep water, using live scopes is the ticket.

“I’ve been fishing the lake for over 30 years, and I have some traditional spots I’ve always fished. I’d have to go to them, fish for a while to find out if the fish are there. Now, I can pull up, turn on the scope and find out if I need to stay and fish or move on.”

Deep, horizontal cover is Rooker’s favorite.

“That’s where they are going to be, and on the main lake due to stratification in the summer, they are going to be between 10 and 12 feet deep in the water column,” he said.

About Bobby Cleveland 1343 Articles
Bobby Cleveland has covered sports in Mississippi for over 40 years. A native of Hattiesburg and graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi, Cleveland lives on Ross Barnett Reservoir near Jackson with his wife Pam.

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