Bass Fishing

Back to the Future: Spotted bass are the stars on Bay Springs Lake

Although he didn’t know it at the time, Roger Stegall got a glimpse into the future while he frantically tried to find a fifth fish to finish a limit during a Red Man tournament back in 1991.

After launching at Bay Springs that morning, the Iuka-based professional bass angler ran up to Pickwick Lake to catch most of his fish.

That effort left him one fish short.

He made the 35-mile run back to Bay Springs hoping he could catch just one more bass. […]

Deer Hunting

The payoff

According to Rick Dillard, U.S. Forest Service Fish and Wildlife coordinator and coordinator of the Magnolia Records Program, Sullivan’s buck is the highest-scoring typical buck ever taken with a modern rifle in Lauderdale County in the Magnolia Records book. […]

Deer Hunting

Sullivan’s strategy

Duke Wilson and Ricky Sullivan quickly realized that they had a potential record-book buck on their new lease. Some hunters might have used tree stands in the thick woods where the deer bedded and spent most of its time, gambling on wind direction favoring them and depending on being close to give them an advantage. […]

Content

Turn over a new Leaf: Float down this river to catch bass, catfish and bream

The Leaf River narrows so the water flows over just one end of a log jam and into a pool of deeper water. The flow is wide enough for a canoe to pass without problem, and Harold Turner guides the canoe to the shallow side of the bend where it rests in the eddy current below the log jam.

Baiting the bream hook he had affixed to a fly-line tippet, he threaded a large grasshopper onto the hook and stripped line from the reel with gentle pulls.

Two pumps, and the hopper landed 3 yards above the rapid flow. Stripping line into the canoe Harold kept slack out of the line as he could. The grasshopper entered the rapids and disappeared, the line goes taught, the rod doubled and the fight was on. […]