The Mississippi River is rising again. It is very unusual to have a rise in August. Normally the river level at Natchez is below 15 feet by now.

We have about 4 feet of water coming down river and that will slow the fishing down on the Old Rivers at Deer Park and Vidalia.

The good news is the fresh water will help the fishing once the rise stops and the river level starts to drop.

The stage at Natchez today is around 32.4 feet going to 33.6 by Tuesday.

The fresh water will push the big Old River bream back into the shade of the flooded green willows.

While the current helps the catfish and bream bite a rise will slow the white perch and bass activity down. Once the rise stops good things will happen.

If the long distance forecast holds up the rise will stop on Wednesday of this coming week and we will see a slow fall that will bring the level down to about 28 feet which is the perfect level for white perch.

You can still catch a few perch on a rise it’s just harder to locate the fish in the fluctuating water. The white perch tend to spread out more on a rise and bunch up and hold tighter to cover on a fall.

If you were catching white perch from a certain area on the Old Rivers just fish the same area but fish it shallower. Some perch will move up and down the water column as the river rises and falls while others will leave the cover altogether.

The bass are bad about leaving the cover and moving shallow when we have a rise. That makes the larger fish hard to locate.

If you’re looking for bass in the Old Rivers during the next few days stick with the drains and ditches leading from the barrow pits to the Old Rivers. You can catch numbers of small bass in shallow water but the big bass tend to hang way out from the drains and points. Those fish can be caught but it is hard work.

Try big deep diving crankbaits like a 300 series Bandit, 400 series Poe’s or a Bagley DB3. Any of these lures tied to 12 pound test line can reach depths of 16 to 18 feet.

The landlocked lakes are producing some good bass. Try surface lures early and late. If you catch one of these cloudy days the surface bite can last for hours on Lakes Concordia, St. John and Bruin.

If it’s a bright day the top water bite will not last long. By mid morning you may have to switch to a shallow diving crankbait like a Bandit 100 or 200 series in shad patterns fished around the outside cypress trees.

So far summer fishing has been good and with the rising river we can expect August to be a good month as well.

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