This past week water levels dropped just enough to open lakes St. John and Concordia. The lakes were closed just after the rain from Hurricane Gustav raised the water the water to a record.

Piers and retaining walls were under water and boats wake cause erosion and could have damaged the piers.

I spoke with the LDWF and they verified that the lakes are now open, but they also ask that boaters and fishermen refrain from pushing your boat off near the piers and seawalls.

Just idle your boat out toward the middle of the lake before taking off.

Lake Bruin remains closed, but the control structure gates in Ruth’s Canal are wide open so Bruin should be open by next weekend.

What’s all this high water doing to the fish?

For one thing they are hard to catch on St. John and Concordia. The water clarity is fine and water temperatures range from 78 to 84 degrees.

These lakes are usually at their very best during the higher stages, but something has the big bass shut off.

The shallow bite is very tough.

You can catch plenty of smaller fish, up to about 2 pounds, on small plastics like a Davis Shaky Worm of Zoom Baby Brush Hawgs or Netbaits Action Cat. The jig bite is slow.

So scale your lure and line size down to catch fish on these lakes for right now.

The Mississippi River level is fluctuating big time since the storms.

The Old Rivers, which are connected to the Mississippi River, rise and fall with the river.

The fishing is great on a fall or a slow rise but when we get a fast rise it will shut the fishing off for a bit.

The river stage at Natchez today is 26.1 feet and rising to 26.6 feet on Tuesday.

If today’s forecast does not change we’ll see a level of 32.7 feet by Thursday.

That is an extremely high stage for the season.

During a normal year of rainfall, the Mississippi River in September would be extremely low and the Old Rivers would be landlocked.

With all the high water and cooler temperatures just around the corner, the Old Rivers will be in good shape for fishing during this fall.

We could see a fall starting late next week that will bring the water level down to about 28 feet.

That is the very best stage for white perch and bream.

Anything below 28 feet is a wonderful level for the bass.

Due to the hurricanes this month we postponed the National Guard/Eddie’s Marine & Tackle Bass Tournament that was set for Lake Concordia.

I’m looking at October or maybe early November for a possible date to hold the event.

I will certainly let everyone know.

The weather is cooling off and it sure felt great to fish this week and not sweat.

Get ready. The cooler the weather the better the fishing.

Eddie Roberts writes a weekly fishing column for The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at fishingwitheddie@bellsouth.net.