Thread: Need recommendations

Originally Posted by htr2133

also, I have to ask; Old Town is a Miss. Oxbow but I was under the impression it was relatively insulated from the flooding of the miss.? With miss. at flood stage in Helena and rising will that mess up Old Town conditions or will Old Town be stable? Thanks guys. I have lived in VA for the last 13 years so I am having to relearn a lot of my native state info all over again.

Unless I'm mistaken, Old Town, even though it sits close to the Mississippi River, is influenced by the White River System not the Mississippi.

At least that's the way my father-in-law explained it to me back in the day. We used to keep a fishing camp at Mellwood Old River which is a Mississippi oxbow and when the Mississippi River was big and muddy and the White River wasn't, we would move over to Old Town to fish.

***DISCLAIMER*** I'm no expert on the subject and I could very well be completely wrong about this!

That is interesting. I always thought it was tied to Miss river. I looked on google maps/earth and I don't see how the white could be related to Old Town but I'm clueless on the rivers and oxbow relationships.

There is a ditch that runs between the White River system and Old Town. If you are looking at Google Earth follow the ditch that flows into the lake from the west, it runs under the highway. My FIL always said that was a slough ditch off of the White River system.

The Mississippi River is only about a mile or so from the south end. It does not affect Old Town. The ditch on the west side does flow to the White River but it has a spillway on it in the lake at HWY 44. It would take a catastrophic flood for the white river to back up about 10 miles of ditches and flow over hwy 44 and into Old Town Lake. What has the most effect on fishing is the ditches that run into the lakes from the farmland on the north and east side of the lake as well as if the spillway is open or not. If the spillway is open after a hard rain, you may as well load up your boat and fish the canal/ditch downstream of the spillway because they will shut down in Old Town because it is only 6 or 7 feet deep in the deepest spots. This depth is also the main reason why the fish spawn there before they do in other lakes in the area.

Old Town was formed from the Earthquake of 1812 which caused the Mississippi River to run backwards as well as change the course of the river and changing the landscape forming the oxbow lakes along the river. There just happens to now be about a mile or so of land between it and the river.

HTR,
If the water is high at Maddox, be sure and have some yoyo's. Also if you fish on the reserve lakes make sure that you pick up a permit (free) from Miss Janice at the bait shop and sign it. The game and fish folks have been checking that closely lately.

Great info guys. Thank you. I feel ok about water conditions based on all that info for Old Town. Anybody have any fishing reports from there in the past week? Or any suggestions for our approach on Sat?

As of now we plan to fish Old Town. If the weather forecast gets too ugly we may stick closer to Jonesboro and try Monterey or one of the Black River Bays.

htr2133,
How did your trip to Old Town turn out? Were they biting?