While Ford's willow-tree pattern works throughout April and May (sometimes even later, depending on the length of the snowmelt period), eventually the water level drops inside the banks for the summer and fall. "Then it's simply a matter of moving to the steep banks and fishing those," he noted. "Buzzbaits on the banks early and then crankbaits, spinnerbaits, jigs -- whatever you've got in the tackle box -- will work. Fish will be on the bottom."

Asked to rank the top five river-connected lakes, Ford provided six: "No. 1, Ferguson; No. 2, Log Loader; No. 3, DeSoto; No. 4, Palmyra; No. 5, Whittington. And I have to include Yucatan as No. 6."

Lake Ferguson is in Washington County adjacent to Greenville; Log Loader Chute is in Bolivar County near Rosedale. Lake Whittington is also in Bolivar County, but farther south near the communities of Benoit and Bolivar. A bit farther north near Clarksdale, DeSoto Lake is in Coahoma County. Palmyra Lake is just south of Vicksburg, situated in an enclave on the far side of the river and forming the state border. Finally, Yucatan Lake is also across the river from the Grand Gulf Nuclear Plant to the northwest of Port Gibson.

"There are actually dozens of lakes, and all of them are good, and that includes many on the Mississippi side plus those in Louisiana and Arkansas, Ford stated. "I like Ferguson and Log loader the best because they have been the most consistent in recent years. It's probably not a coincidence that both of them are deep-water river ports. That's probably the key."

It's worth noting that your Mississippi fishing license is valid for the lakes on the Arkansas and Louisiana side of the Mississippi as long as the lakes can be reached by water from the river.

"The thing to know," Ford said, "is that every one of the oxbows share similar conditions: a deep and shallow side and flooded cypresses. What works on one will work on the others, albeit at different depths, due to different contours."

NON-CONNECTED OXBOWS
Many of Mississippi's best oxbow fisheries are no longer connected to the Mississippi River, and, in fact, never were.

"There are several great oxbows that were once part of the Mississippi, like Washington and Eagle, but there's even more that are in the south Delta that are so far inland from the river that it's obvious they were never connected to it," Ford explained. "Some were part of the Yazoo and Sunflower system, but as I understand it, several of them were part of the Ohio River system."