The Mississippi River should drop to a favorable stage for fishing the Old Rivers at Deer Park and Vidalia by June 22.

If the forecast holds up we could see a level of 35 feet toward the end of the month.

The stage at Natchez today is approximately 45 feet. The river is falling about a foot a day.

This fast fall will create some moving water, some current.

Check out the ditches and drains leading from the barrow pits to the Old Rivers. Find the current and you’ll find the fish.

At 35 feet you can locate and catch the big bluegill and chinquapin in the flooded green willows on the island side of any of the Old Rivers. Try crickets for the bluegill and red worms for the chinquapin.

The white perch fishermen tend to wait until river stage drops to about 28 feet before they get serious about fishing.

At 28 feet the old dead snags will start to show and that’s where you’ll find the perch.

The bass in the backwaters can be caught anytime but the higher river stages offer the bass more water to feed in and it can be difficult to locate the fish in the thick flooded woods.

Water temperatures are rising fast on the landlocked lakes.

Saturday Lake St. John’s surface water temperature was around 84 degrees.

The warmer water will create a good early morning bite and really help the night fishing. Night fishing for bass is pretty simple on the landlocked lakes.

Just fish the lighted piers. If the pier owners are fishing give them some room and move on to the next pier and come back later.

The bass are on a good early morning top water bite but once the sun gets up you can either stay with the shallow water pattern and target the thickest cypress trees and piers that offer the most shade or go deeper with crankbaits.

I’d rather stay with the shallow water. During the hotter months the bass holding in deep water tend to suspend under the docks and suspended fish can be hard to catch.

The bass will feed a lot at night and during the early morning hours then lay up during the day.

You can catch the non-active fish by making repeated cast to the same target with big noisy surface lures.

This will trigger reaction strikes and reaction strikes are usually from aggression instead of hunger.

The bream spawn on the landlocked lakes is winding down.

Look for the big bream on Lakes Concordia and St. John to be holding in a little bit deeper water near the outside cypress trees.

Our lakes are crowded with pleasure and fishing boats so please be careful, wear your life jacket and practice safe boating.

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