Breaux starts with crankbaits throughout the year, beginning with a Bagley Bugling B in craw/chartreuse or black/gold. "If the water is really turbid, I'll use the craw/chartreuse but if the sun is up and the water looks like tea, I go with black/gold," he said.

He fishes the crankbaits with a medium retrieve by marking the structure and making pattern casts toward the shoreline. "It's important to mark right where you get a bite," he offered, "because a lot of times there will be a bunch of them right over one particular piece of structure, and they will not be terribly cooperative elsewhere in the same spot."

Another sort of area that Breaux likes to target is in the mouths of bayous entering the river channel, especially the larger ones. "If there's a lot of water moving through the river," he explained, "I will tie on a 6-inch black/gold flake worm on a Carolina rig and work it over the secondary points of those bayous. Sometimes you will get little eddies forming, and if you do, you can bet there will be some bass there."

The bayous themselves can also be promising for bass at this time of year. Target the first 50 yards or so of the deepest cuts and the points at which they meet the main channel of the bayou. Texas-rigged firetail or watermelon-colored worms are smart picks here, but they need to be fished slowly to yield the best results.

Jig-fishing is (to me, at least) about as exciting as watching paint dry. You've got to fish the lure very, very slowly, and you'll be lucky if in the course of a day you get a handful of bites -- but chances are good that the ones you do get will be from nice fish.

Speaking of bites: Don't expect these fish to double your rod over when they strike. The rule of thumb is to reel your slack in gently, attempting to set the hook if you feel your line start to get heavy, or feel a thump of any kind. It's better to hook and reel in a chunk of driftwood or a cola can that someone dumped in the river than to miss a nice bass.

Other possible targets in the rivers: some of the old sunken boats and pirogues you'll come across. Certain of them are visible to the naked eye; others you can only see via sonar. These can hold some quite respectable fish.

Try slow-rolling a black 1/4-ounce spinnerbait around these wrecks. I like to fish with teardrop-bladed spinners in the bayous, as my fishing logbook shows that they've produced better for me over time.

If spinners don't get the job done, go to a jig and work the spot over thoroughly. That particular wreck might be the domain of a big bass that's just not going to get up and chase anything moving faster than a snail's pace.

That said, anglers with serious patience and a penchant for locating the very biggest bass in the rivers might want to focus on some of the structure found on the main body of the river out as deep as 25 feet. Those targeting deep bass on the Red River use the kinds of lures mentioned above but, instead of targeting rocky bluffs, hit ledges in the river channel, logjams and dropoffs.