This past week cooler air temperatures turned the fish on in the landlocked lakes while a standstill on the Mississippi River turned the fish off on the Old Rivers.

That’s what is so neat about living around so much water. When the fish stop biting on one lake you can load up and launch in another lake in minutes.

The fish did not actually quit biting on the Old Rivers, the bite just slowed down. The Mississippi River dictates the fish activity on the Old Rivers.

As the water falls the fish tend to feed more and more often. Early this week the river level at Natchez stopped at 26.2 feet. Today we have a slight rise coming down river which is a good thing.

The longer the level stays around 28 feet at Natchez the better the fishing will be. The stage today is 27.3 and the rise will continue until Sunday when we should see approximately 28.1 feet.

On Monday the forecast predicts a very slow fall. That’s exactly what we need to keep fresh water in the Old Rivers. At this level there is still plenty of water in the flooded green willows and that’s where you’ll find the big Old River bream.

Try crickets or small spinners cast on an ultra light. When using artificial lures for bream, keep your retrieve speed as slow as possible. If you’re using live bait fish just off the bottom and you will catch larger fish.

The white perch bite fell off this week. I had several calls asking what had happened. Fishermen were catching 60 to 100 white perch a day of a single tree top. My reply about where the fish went was “look in your freezer.”

The white perch in the Old Rivers can only stand so much pressure and with hundreds of people fishing over the past few weeks you can bet some areas are getting fished out. When the visible cover gets hammered it’s time to start looking off-shore for less pressured fish.

Just turn your sonar unit on and idle around until you see the huge schools of shad.

Drift slowly through the shad with your jigs or shiners set at the same depth the baitfish are holding in.

The fish holding offshore receive far less pressure than the fish holding near visible cover.

We had a good time last weekend competing in the Kyle’s House/Sunshine Children’s Center benefit bass tournament. Thanks to the 38 men and women that entered we raised $760 for the children. Tony LaPrairie and I won with an eye popping five bass limit weighing 19.15 pounds anchored by the largest fish of the day — a 6.21 Lake St. John lunker.

John Bruce and David Cooper placed second with five nice bass weighing 18.36 pounds. George Prince and Matt Ingram placed third with 15.46 pounds.

The cooler weather pushed some big bass shallow and we had a great day on the water.

We will make this an annual event so please make plans to fish the benefit next year.

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