According to Dave Armstrong, district fisheries supervisor, April is a great time to bass-fish the Mobile Delta. His data show the peak of the spawn for largemouth bass ranges from the last week in March into the second week of April.

Indeed, the feeding binge that occurs before and after the spawn is unequalled by any other time of year. During the spawn, fish guarding their nests willingly attack lures worked too close for their comfort. With so many aggressive fish cruising shallow water, and given so many different places to fish, knowing where to fish is key to success. Choices on the Delta seem unlimited, but water, wind and tide can quickly shut down certain areas. If you find your hotspot unfishable in April, these waters always have another one ready to try.

MOBILE DELTA
Of all the environmental conditions -- tides, temperature, salinity, wind and turbidity -- facing Delta anglers in April, nothing is more important than water levels. They determine a fisherman's strategy here.

For fishing, most anglers divide Mobile's long skinny delta into three sections: the rivers and oxbow lakes above Mount Vernon, where the Mobile River forks into the Alabama and Tombigbee Rivers; the lakes and creeks from Mount Vernon to just below McReynolds Lake; and the bays and bayous on the lower Delta, which is also known as the Causeway area.

The upper section, when it's fishable, usually produces the heaviest stringers, while the lower section contains large numbers of bass.

With a drainage area of 43,683 square miles that includes seven major rivers, the Mobile River Basin yields more water per square mile than any river basin in the country. Water flowing from Georgia, Mississippi and 67 percent of Alabama dictates where to fish.

The Tombigbee River is fishable when the river gauge at Leroy reads 12 feet or less. Likewise, the Alabama is productive when Choctaw Bluff reads 20 feet or less.

The mid-section is fishable if the reading at the Barry Steam Plant on the Mobile River is 8 feet or less. In April, it's possible for all gauges to exceed these limits.

When this happens, the rivers, creeks and lakes jump their banks, and the fish scatter into the flooded timber and marshes. But when the water finally recedes into the banks, which river should you fish?

Glenn Wilson, one of Mobile's savvier tournament anglers, offers this example.

"If the Alabama River has been stable for a week, and the Tombigbee has just returned to its banks, fish the oxbow lakes off the Alabama. The water is warmer. Also, it takes a few days for the bass to position themselves on the ambush points where they are going to feed. Once the bass have established their feeding habits, that's where you will want to fish."

James "Rawhide" Smith, another well-known tournament angler from Mobile, prefers falling water as the river gauges move into fishable range.

"Falling water is significant," Smith said, "because big fish don't bite when the water is rising and the river is muddy. With falling water, everything is pouring out of the backwater lakes -- that's when you go up the rivers -- and fishing is great."