The rain has slacked up this week, but that might end tomorrow as a cold front approaches.

Lakes Concordia and St. John remain under a No Wake order from the CPSO. That means you can launch your boat and fish these lakes, but do not exceed idle speed.

We received almost twelve inches of rain in three weeks. All the area lakes on the Louisiana side of the river are high and muddy. The water clarity has cleared up a lot and while water levels are slow to drop; the lakes are low enough to open them back up to normal boat traffic. The No Wake order remains because there was a slight chance of rain yesterday and again today.

I doubt we get any rain until Monday. It looks like we have a wet cold front coming, bringing with it about a 70-percent chance of heavy rain on Monday. We certainly don’t need that.

We had so much water in Concordia Parish and the canals behind the weirs have so much debris in them, the lake levels are falling very slow. Of course all this water flows south and most of it goes into the Black River/Horseshoe Lake Complex.

The Complex rose about five, if not six feet, but it is now falling and there is not a No Wake order on the Complex as of today. Some of the piers built low to the water on Lakes Concordia and St. John were underwater. To prevent any further damage that was mostly caused by high winds last weekend, they do not want any fishing boat wakes on the lakes until the water is off the piers and walkways.

Several out-of-town bass clubs and recreational anglers called last week and canceled their reservations for this weekend. They went elsewhere. There is nothing we can do about that, but after experiencing one of the coldest prolonged winters we had in a few decades, the local marinas, boat dealerships and other businesses that profit from fishing and boat traffic certainly did not need that.

Many of us are just now climbing out of a massive pile of bills. Normally, many people in this area fish year round, but with air temperatures below 20 degrees on many days, not many people braved the elements this winter.

Hopefully the weirs will do their job and keep the water at a normal level and we could miss some of this rain moving in tomorrow. Before you launch on Lakes Concordia or St. John, check with the local authorities to see if the No Wake order has been lifted. If we get a lot of rain, there is a possibility the lakes will be closed to all boat traffic again. Hopefully not and the lakes will remain open.

While the bass and white perch fishing is slow because of the muddy and high water, the catfish are biting like crazy.

Catfish like high muddy water and some local fishermen and women are loading their freezers with channel cats and a few blue catfish.

Most are using yo-yo’s and trotlines baited with cut skipjack and/or minnows. Some of the people I spoke with that baited up with live minnows caught some huge white perch to go along with their limit of catfish.

This weekend, a couple local bass clubs postponed their club events while others traveled to Okhissa Lake in Franklin County. Okhissa Lake is a manmade reservoir fed by Porter Creek which is a clear water creek.

Water levels on Okhissa were just a bit higher than normal but not much. The water clarity ranged from clear to just slightly stained. Several bass exceeding eight pounds were caught from Okihissa Lake over the past week or so.

Hopefully this rain will move on out of here and conditions will get back to normal soon.