Gone Fishing with Jerry Miller

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September 17, 2011

Jerry Miller, Guest columnist Jacksonville Daily Progress The Jacksonville Daily Progress Sat Sep 17, 2011, 05:10 PM CDT

JACKSONVILLE — Adapting To Low Water Conditions

The low water conditions on Lake Palestine make it very difficult to get into areas like Flat Creek. Many times under low water conditions I could locate openings through the timber like old logging roads and catch bass on the edges. But not this year.

Lake Palestine is down approximately five and one-half feet, making Flat Creek and the north end of Palestine tough, if not impossible, to navigate.

Recently we fished the Flat Creek area and found the water quality poor and the fishing rough. The best area was outside the timber on an old inundated bridge. Mark Ford and I caught several sand bass in this area and a four-pound bass under the big bridge. A shad-colored crank bait that dove to six feet was the best lure.

In the Kickapoo area bass will congregate in deep holes, often in the bend of a creek. As the water recedes bass pull off of the flats and bunch up in deep holes.

The north end of Lake Palestine is very hard to get through. Ricky Vandergriff, a local guide, said, “The pipeline and hi-line areas are anywhere from one to two feet deep. They are inaccessible. You will experience extremely tough conditions.”

Underwater bridges also act like magnets to bass. Huge schools of bait fish often roam up and down the old flooded road beds. On Lake Palestine it’s possible to catch sand bass for hours on a small spoon. I like to fish the smaller one-quarter ounce spoons or a spinning rod loaded with 10-pound line. I usually swim this bait slowly near the bottom. I often stop reeling and let the spoon drop back to the bottom.

Mark Ford and I recently fished the 155 bridge area with spoons and caught numerous sand bass. They weren’t big but were fun to catch.

We also caught about a dozen black bass, mostly on shallow KVD crank baits. The majority of the black bass were on shallow sandy points in the Highsaw Creek area. About half of our bass were caught on Carolina rigs and floating worms, like the Tornado. Watermelon pumpkin red colored worms were best. These bass were more active in the afternoon and were chasing shad. They were relating to scattered, isolated cover on sandy points. Most of the strikes came when the Carolina rig bumped into cover.

It’s always amazed me how fast the surface temperature drops on our area lakes. By mid-September the surface temperature had already dropped from the high 80’s to 75 degrees in the mornings.

We launched our boat at Lake Palestine Resort. We did have some problems on the steep ramp site. My trailer hit high center and we had some problems backing up, but we were able to get in and out. As the lake continues to drop, you do need to be cautious.

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