‘Largemouth Lodge’
Mississippi's Lake Okhissa producing quality bass, drawing more Capital City area anglers
Jimmy Breen knows enough to know when it’s time to draw on his knowledge about the place he calls his second home.
OK, it’s really his hunting camp: Now that the seasons are over, it’s time to call his home-away-from-home spot, a fishing camp, and, these days, Lake Okhissa is more than making Breen consider a change to “largemouth lodge,” because the term “fishing camp” just doesn’t measure up.
His friend Lonnie Boudreaux shares his passion for this new impoundment, so much so that he admits he hasn’t fished any of his old haunts in three years.
Why?
Their latest exploits explain why an increasing number of Capital City area freshwater fishermen head to this 1,100-acre lake inside the Homochitto National Forest near Bude, Miss.
“It’s 80 miles from my house,” said Boudreaux, who lives near Broadmoor High School. “It’s an hour (and) 30 (minutes), maybe an hour (and) 45 (minutes) depending on traffic.”
For now, Breen has bragging rights, an honor that’s swapped between him and Boudreaux several times in the past three years since Boudreaux built a camp next door to Breen’s “lodge.”
In one four-day stretch earlier this month, Breen said, “I had my four best days of bass fishing — ever.”
It started when he caught and released an 8-pound, 2-ounce bass and followed with an 8-6 before he latched on to a 10-pounder. And he has photos to prove it.
“The last two days I caught 25 bass. Of the 25, 10 were over 5 pounds,” Breen said. “The first two I had 15-to-17 bass and the big ones.”
His secret? A black-and-blue “mop” jig.
“The ‘mop” has a living rubber skirt instead of a silicone one and it’s a longer skirt,” Breen said.
It’s a bait with more bulk and a larger profile than most jigs, and those two attributes make it more of a big-bass bait.
“I use mostly jigs there, but I do use some crankbaits,” Breen said. “We catch fish anywhere from three feet to 30 feet of water. Some of the bass have been on (spawning) beds, but some are still way deep.”
For most south Louisiana anglers, “deep” is relative term. “Deep” in the Atchafalaya Spillway is eight feet. Breen and Boudreaux said Okhissa’s average depth is 33 feet and there are some 70-80 foot holes.
Boudreaux said most of the fish he’s catching these days have come on a black-and-blue jig, but quickly added he’s developed a passion for casting deep-running crankbaits — again an adjective that relative to his new-found fishing home.
“When you say deep around here (south Louisiana), it’s not the kind of deep we’re fishing there,” Boudreaux said. “I’m talking about running 30 (foot)-plus cranks.
“Since I started fishing there three years ago, it’s the only place I’ve been fishing. It’s very challenging and I had to learn how to fish all over again,” he added, mentioning again the extra-deep crankbaits and that he’d learned to fish Carolina-rigged soft-plastic lures, a tactic he’d never tried before going to Okhissa.
How’s he doing?
“Just last Wednesday we caught 16 (bass) and had nine six-pounders with the biggest a 6-12 and have four or five more 5-pounders,” Boudreaux said.
All on jigs?
“Yes, but that doesn’t tell the whole story,” Boudreaux said. “The day before we caught 17 bass in 5-12 feet of water, but the story of this lake is that you’ll be on the fish in shallow water in the morning and go out that afternoon and have to do something totally different to catch fish. While Breen and Boudreaux continue will continue their friendly competition — “We have camps next to each other,” Boudreaux said, “We’re very good friends” — Boudreaux said the impetus to scrap all his freshwater fishing plans for the foreseeable future came from Breen.
“The night before they opened the lake, he (Breen) slept in his truck at the landing just to make sure he was there when the lake opened,” Boudreaux said. “There are some very big fish up there, and I’ve lost some double-digit fish because there’s so much (underwater) timber.”
Before you go
Lake Okhissa, under the U.S. Forest Service, is south of Bude, Miss., near the intersection of U.S. 98 and U.S. 84.
Louisiana anglers must buy a Mississippi nonresident freshwater fishing license (an annual license is $50. There’s a three-day license ($17). There is a $5 per-vehicle fee to enter the park surrounding the lake, which includes access to the boat launch.
There’s a slot limit for largemouths: Anglers must return all bass 18-to-22 inches long to the lake immediately after landing. The daily creel is 10 bass under 18 inches long and one bass over 22 inches long.