The area lakes will not have low water problems this fall. Normally the fall season is very dry and the lakes are at record low levels, but not this year.

October rains have filled, and in some cases, overflowed the lakes. The waters south of us are in bad shape and fishing is extremely tough on places like the Saline/Larto Complex, Black River/Horseshoe Lake and other water shed lakes.

Black River Lake is producing some nice bass but the rest of the complex is high and muddy. When we have this much water the best fishing takes place on the land locked oxbow lakes like Concordia, St. John and Bruin.

These lakes receive less runoff and water clarity is much better than the water clarity of the lakes to the south. The best reports on numbers of bass continue to come from Lake Bruin.

Lake Bruin is the best cold water lake in the area. As water temperatures continue to drop, Lake Bruin will just keep pumping out more bass and crappie. With surface water temperatures still in the mid 60s a host of lures will catch the bass. Try surface lures early.

Zara Spooks, chuggers and popping lures will work as will buzz baits. Once the top water bite dies off, try flipping and pitching Sweet Beavers (color #CA 420 or Green Pumpkin) and Davis Paca Jigs with a Zoom or Paca trailer.

The cypress tree bite is good, but if for reason you can’t find the bass on the trees at Lake Bruin, try the man made brush piles near the piers and on the ledges.

Unlike Concordia and Lake St. John, Bruin is loaded with manmade structure that holds lots of bass. If you fish ten piers on Bruin at least one will have brush around it. Use your sonar and just idle or troll around and watch for this fish holding structure and you’re on your way to catching big bass on Lake Bruin.

Lake Concordia’s Florida bass are turning on. A nice fish weighing a little over 8 pounds was caught by Johnny Havard recently and I heard of a few more 5 to 6 pound fish coming from Concordia.

Try the cypress trees with sweet beavers and Davis Paca jigs. You can catch the numbers off crankbaits like a Bomber 7a or anyone of the many cranks that will cover water depths down to 10 feet.

Lake St. John’s bass fishing was a bit slow after all this rain but it will get better once the water settles down and the water clarity gets a bit better.

The hybrid stripe bass are starting to move shallow as the water cools down and you can catch the hard pulling stripers on Rat-L-Traps, tail spinners and spoons.

Fall fishing can be good or it can be a challenge. It all depends on the weather. One thing’s for certain. If the weather is not cooperating, just stick around because it will change.

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