August was the longest, hottest, most humid month I can recall in years.

Fishing in heat was just not enjoyable. Anytime you can smell fiberglass cooking along with a slight smell of bacon (your skin) it is not fun.

The month did end on a good note. We had 8 to 9 inches of rain across the parish. The cool rain lowered surface water temperatures on the area lakes dropping the temps a full 10 degrees.

The fish are much more active with good reports coming from the Old Rivers at Vidalia and Deer Park.

This week I spoke with several fishermen and ladies that caught limits of big slab white perch, bass and bream. The river is still teasing us but the slow fall is a good thing.

During August, the river would fall 4 to 5 feet then rise 2 to 3 feet. The slight average fall of a foot or so a week has at long last dropped the river stage to lowest level of the year. The river stage at Natchez today is 28.1 feet and falling.

The very best stage for white perch fishing on the Old Rivers is 28 feet and what better time to be at 28 feet than on a holiday weekend. This will be the first weekend of 2010 to have a river level below 30 feet.

Many people ask me why 28 feet? At 28 feet the old dead willows will show above the waterline. You don’t have to be good with a sonar unit when fishing visible cover.

The people I know that have caught the white perch from 42 feet down to today’s stage were fishing over the top of the submerged dead snags. They were using sonar to stay on and over the cover that was not yet visible from the surface.

The old stump line is just outside the flooded green willows so you can back off about 20 yards or so from the green willows and be in the right area. The bream fishermen and ladies are doing real good on the Old Rivers. As the water pulls out of the woods the bream come out with the falling water.

Try crickets for bluegill and red worms for chinquapin fished in 4 to 8 feet of water. Keep your bait near the bottom for the larger fish. Fish shallow and you will load up on small bream.

The bass are different, to say the least. During the higher stages there is so much cover in the Old Rivers along the island side or east bank that’s it is hard to nail down a productive area. It’s much easier to locate the bass holding near the mouth of the drains coming from the barrow pits.

Try crank baits, soft plastics and jigs around the drains. Bluff banks and main lake points produce some nice bass when we’re at this level as well.

Sonar really helps when bass fishing the Old Rivers. Find a good off-shore brush pile and you will probably catch some bass that no one else knows about. Have a great safe holiday!

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