Fishing the Mighty Mississippi

[MikeA57]

I know that a lot of you guys fish the MS River up north. I however am down south at Memphis. A couple of weeks ago my boys and I were given 100 acres to hunt on in MS that lies between the levee and the bank of the MS River. The bank leading down to the edge of the water is riprap for most, if not all of the property. The day we made our first trek onto the land the river was about 20' down from the top of the bank.

One feature of the place that is in its favor is the fact that there are a series of rock jetties that jut out into the water about 200-300' from shore. I figure that in between those jetties will be some good fishing. I'm wondering though about how to fish them. Can you guys give me any advice about this? We will most likely be fishing from atop those jetties at least to begin with. I've got a 14' Lowe Big Jon with a 48" bottom and a 25 hp Merc that my Dad bought to fish along the Ohio River but, the MS is on a whole other scale from the Ohio current wise. I'm not too sure about getting that boat out on it (although we saw several boats around the 16' size going up and down the river the day we were there.)

I'm interested in catching bass, bream, and crappie from around there if I can. A few guys I know have told me that the stripers hang out there and also there are hybrids. I'm thinking there probably isn't too much cover for crappie or maybe even for bass but I thought they may lurk in the rocks close to the end where the current dies off.

Here's a couple of pictures that I took from our first trip there. It was kind of tough to get down to the water's edge on the riprap. It can be treacherous!! They are about 12-15' out of the water right now.

- 1st pic is from South end looking North. Jetties can be seen at the far right of the picture.
- 2nd pic is looking from the North End towards the South end of the property. Last jetty is just past the sand beach in the picture.