Got a 2 day there next weekend out of rowland cooper. Anyone been down lately?

Friday through Sunday this past weekend but I was hunting and didnt tow the boat. Saturday would've been good, they were pulling water when I left the island at 5:30 a.m. and still pulling when I came back at noon. I'll talk to some guys I know and pm you if they are on anything hot.

Don't make me tell superdave you're cheating

Now is the time to catch big bass and plenty of bass on Millers Ferry.

Don't make me tell superdave you're cheating [/quot

trust me if i had his insider info i would be sitting pretty

I wish i had the technology to post a pic but then again all the fish I knew about are dead and gone now. I could have helped you with the where for sure

My boy caught one around 6 1/2ibs few weeks ago near our camp. We Thought about going up to camp, but the forecast for Saturday is calling (some rain) for a high of 58 & low of 36 Sunday morning. And looks like the winds gonna be blowing purty good, so i think we're gonna stay around the house...

Last weekend a guy caught about 15lbs all spots up there.

nice.

Would you bass semi pros believe there used to be very, very few spots above Miller's Ferry Dam?

When was that jhook?

At a Millers Ferry Bass Club tournament from Ellis Landing, June or July of 1981 or 1982, I weighed one that might have been 15". Several were in disagreement over what it was...but a smallmouth was in the mix...the rest of us just enjoying the "discussion"... They really started showing south of Elm Bluff in appreciable numbers by the late 80's...by the mid 90's all the way to the dam and from there they have flourished and seem to be chunkier than in most places they inhabit normally. Odd thing is you could always count on a few up against the dam on the lower pool and then the same thing at Claiborne, except at below Claiborne Dam all the way to Little River the were always there if you fished baits that they hit and in the right places.
I haven't bass fished up there since we sold our place at River Bluff along about when the spot fishing became vogue.
The lake has seen a lot of change.
If you fish there in the spring imagine this...going into Mill Creek, Shell Creek, or Alligator Sough, maybe Gees Bend...on a Saturday and March or April and turning around to go somewhere else because it was just TOO CROWDED...
I know that was a long answer to "When"

I've fished Claiborne since mid seventies and Millers Ferry since early 80's. The feeder creeks going to Claiborne and the River below the damn were loaded with spots in the seventies. We would wade them and catch the devil out of small spots in the summers. I wonder if the impounding knocked them back and it took some time for the spots to rebound? I remember catching some spots on the river in the seventies, but been too long to remember if as many as late 80's and early 90's when it was really good. We kept bass back then (and all other species). I will see if I can find some old stringer photos and examine.

They were almost certainly knocked back when it went from riverine type system to a lake. They spawn on a different substrate type than largemouths.
Things change...When I started fishing at Millers Ferry when I was 13 in 1977 you could run from the river to the hwy 41 bridge in Pine Barren without checking up...just stay in the creek channel tween the trees...same for Buzzards Roost all the way to the Gold Mine...not now.

How on earth where you able to get through the back of pine barren? It's a mother getting back there with a trolling moter. those cypress stumps don't budge!

sure is a pain in the bass for sure

WHen they first flooded the lake the timber in there was still standing and you could run the natural creek channel all the way. Now when you get to the back where it's real flat and shallow didn't exist. It was 4-5 feet deep and i think and old pasture on the Jones place. It didn't start silting in real bad until maybe 82-83. From there you just shot right through what is now a bunch of flats and willow runs and logjams right into a clean creek channel.
For those of you trying to negotiate it now good luck! LOL
BUT...after it forks as you come in from the river if you take the right fork hug the bank all the way back past the timber...it was an old road along a fence row...there used to be some posts left I doubt are still there to show the way.

That's kinda crazy to think about running back through there on with an out board.I hunt on pine barren creek and every weekend morning you can hear duck hunters fighting their way to the back of the creek in the dark . It sounds like bad morning to me. I remember as a kid watching an Archie Phillips episode fishing with Paul Ellis on Miller's ferry throwing a Carolina rig and catching some bigguns. That show really turned me on to fishing.

The fun part was taking someone with you who had never been! Lol
You come in out of the river and shoot between the 2 trees with orange paint on them and never check up...good times!
Very common to go into the old creek run in the late spring and late fall and catch 25 or more in a half day.

developed a flipping bite saturday but could not keep a hook in them. Sunday the same with a little crankbait bite. Slow slow and slow. took 13lbs to win i had 5.