Features from March 2018
The cast was a foot right of perfect, and the Boat Monkey float settled in the center of the concentric rings forming around its landing. A sea gull swooped down to check it out, only to turn away perhaps repulsed by the orange bobber —which suddenly was gone, jerked completely out of sight below the surf.
Scott Ellis yelped, purred and clucked, and he was greeted with thunderous gobbles from a couple of fired-up gobblers.
This winter has been a butt-kicker, but Pete Ponds isn’t worried. For one thing, the bass pro from Madison has plenty of warm clothing, and he’s thinking that recent weather patterns will produce more opportunities to catch fish during the seasonal transition period known as the prespawn.
May is widely considered to be the best month for chasing bream, but die-hard panfisher anglers know that redear sunfish — aka chinquapin, shellcracker or just redear — move into their prespawn and spawning patterns much sooner than bluegill and other sunfish species that fall under the general colloquialism of “bream.”
Every spring, an eons-old phenomenon takes place in the lakes and streams of southeastern states: the waters warm, crappie move shallow and become active, and fishermen rejoice. They reap the bounty brought on by the predictable behavior of the fair-fleshed fish.
Columns - March 2018
I enjoy fishing Bay Springs Lake in March, because I like catching largemouth, spotted and smallmouth bass on the same lake, often in the same places and sometimes on the same lure.
- Russell Garner remembers the days in South Texas and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast when anglers modified jointed Redfins to make a “wake” bait that redfish found hard to resist.
- Balsamic Shrimp has a distinct sweet tang from the honey and the balsamic vinegar, but there is no sour component in its taste profile.
- On one particular afternoon in mid-January, my son-in-law, Jody, had the itch to head over to his favorite deer-hunting area to try and get a crack at a couple of elusive, mature bucks he had captured on trail camera.
- Reservoir crappie populations are notoriously cyclic. A strong year-class is produced once every few years and is usually followed by one or more weak year-classes.
As I write this, another year’s deer season has come to a close. For many hunters, this is a sad time, as thoughts of a long offseason become reality.
Outdoor Updates - March 2018
- Mississippi turkey hunters who had a good season last spring will enjoy the forecast for the 2018 season, but those who did not will not be so enthusiastic.
- For the fourth time in six years, and the 13th time in its history, the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society (BASS) is bringing one of its national tournaments to Barnett Reservoir.
- Aubrey Dale had hunted all season to get her first buck, joining her father in the deer stand whenever she could, showing more patience than one would expect of a 10-year-old.
- Mississippi deer and turkey hunters are a step close to a mandatory harvest report system after the Senate wildlife committee amended a House bill that would establish the regulation beginning in 2019.
- Supplemental feeding of deer was suspended on Feb. 9 in six west-central counties of Mississippi after a lab in Iowa confirmed the Magnolia State’s first case of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in a free-range buck from Issaquena County.
- The National Wild Turkey Federation’s formula for scoring a wild gobbler is a combination of weight, spur length and beard length, with multipliers used for emphasis on spur and beard. All measurements are taken in 1/16-inch measurements, and lengths and weight must be converted to decimal form.
- Mississippi’s Magnolia Records program tracks turkey hunting records in the state and has a database that includes hundreds of birds taken by hunters within its borders.
- On Jan. 31, the final day of deer season in much of Mississippi, Cameron Stigler of Florence took his 7-year-old daughter, Presleigh, to the woods for a last shot at avoiding a shutout season.
- When asked to describe his 18-point, massive, 185-inch buck killed Jan. 13 in the Mississippi Delta, 15-year-old Ross Carpenter didn't use words like trophy or beautiful or anything like that.