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In this special Mobile-Tensaw Delta Fishing Report, host Nick Williams sits down with longtime Great Days Outdoors contributor Don Green for a wide-ranging conversation about a lifetime on the Delta. Green, best known to many readers for his solunar charts, explains how moon position, sun position, tides, weather, water level, and seasonal timing all work together to influence feeding activity. The episode turns into more than a fishing report. It is a deep look at how one of the Delta’s longtime students learned to read fish, patterns, forage, and water over decades of experience.
Green also shares stories from years of bass fishing, brim fishing, duck hunting, lure making, rod building, and mentoring young anglers. The result is a useful big-picture lesson for anybody who wants to fish the Mobile-Tensaw Delta better instead of just fishing harder.
Conditions Recap
This episode is less about a single hot bite and more about the overall factors that shape fishing on the Delta. Green explains that during winter, fish often settle into one stronger feeding window in the middle of the day, especially once cold weather stabilizes. In warmer months, the system becomes more tide-driven, and on the Delta that outgoing water can make a major difference for bass and other freshwater species. He repeatedly comes back to the same point: anglers need to look at conditions holistically. Moon phase alone is not enough. Water level, current, barometric pressure, temperature trends, and access to the right areas all matter.
He also notes that January and February can be more water-level dependent than moon dependent. Rising winter water can push fish into the woods, but once that water crests and starts falling, drainage areas can become excellent places to intercept bass moving out. For anglers on the Delta, that means paying attention not only to feeding windows but also to where fish can physically position as river levels change.
Don Green on Solunar Timing and Why It Still Matters
Green traces his solunar interest back to childhood, when he watched his father consult a Farmer’s Almanac before deciding whether it was worth going fishing. That curiosity eventually grew into decades of building his own charts and refining them for local conditions. His core belief is that the best feeding periods happen when the moon and sun are working together in a stronger way, creating what he views as a more powerful trigger for fish to feed.
He explains that the best fishing windows often cluster around certain moon periods, especially in the days leading up to a full moon. In his experience, a week before the full moon can be especially strong for bass, crappie, and brim, while the bite often changes character once the full moon arrives. He also emphasizes that anglers should keep a detailed logbook. Rather than blindly following a chart, he recommends recording moon phase, weather, water level, fish behavior, and results so patterns can be compared year after year.
Green says weather can override the chart at times. A slowly falling barometer ahead of a front can hurt the bite, but the period right as a front arrives can be excellent. Stable conditions, or a slight upward trend in pressure, are usually better. His message is simple: solunar timing works best when it is combined with real observation rather than used as a shortcut.
How That Applies on the Mobile-Tensaw Delta
On the Delta, Green says tidal influence changes the equation. He believes many anglers miss fish because they focus on the wrong part of the tide or fish the wrong depth for the season. In warmer months, he likes late-afternoon fishing, especially when the tide is moving the right way and bass are setting up to feed as light levels drop. In colder months, suspended fish become a major factor, especially after the first strong fronts cool the upper layer of water and force fish to reposition.
He also points out that the Delta’s fish are not behaving in a vacuum. Salinity pushes, floodwater, and current all alter where fish can hold. In truly high water, he prefers targeting drainage areas and edges where fish get pulled back toward more defined places as water falls. That kind of situational fishing, in his view, often matters more than a simple “good moon day” or “bad moon day.”
One practical takeaway from this section is that anglers should not fish the Delta the same way they fish a pond. Green says solunar timing is often cleaner and easier to apply in non-tidal ponds and lakes because there is less moving water complicating the fish’s position. On the Delta, the angler has to interpret both feeding time and location together.
Seasonal Patterns: Bass, Crappie, and Brim
Green spends a good portion of the conversation walking through how seasonal patterns fit into his fishing approach. In spring, he watches for bass to stage before bedding and believes anglers need to pay closer attention to temperature stability instead of just one warm day. He also raises a conservation point about bedding fish, especially males guarding nests, and argues that anglers should think more carefully about what repeated bed-fishing pressure does to recruitment.
For brim, he says many anglers miss fish because they do not adjust to what brim are feeding on by season. Earlier in the year, he prefers worms because the fish are often feeding closer to the bottom on natural forage. Later in summer and into the warmer stretch of the year, he believes crickets become more effective as more insect forage becomes available. That kind of seasonal forage-matching is a theme throughout the conversation.
For anglers targeting pond fish, Green says the solunar approach can be especially effective because the fish are not being repositioned by tide. In those settings, timing the bite window and presenting a natural bait at the right depth can make a major difference.
Gear and Bait Insights from a Lifetime of Tinkering
Green also gets into the tackle side of things, and this section is especially useful for anglers who like to experiment. He has been pouring his own soft plastics since he was young, long before the modern variety of commercially available baits existed. He talks about making worms, spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, and rods, and says some of his best tournament success came on homemade lures that closely matched what fish were already feeding on.
His tackle philosophy is straightforward: fish respond best to baits that mimic real forage. During high water in spring, that often means a crawfish-style presentation. He specifically mentions slow-rolling a chatterbait-style lure in darker, crawfish-like colors around likely holding areas. In worm fishing, he strongly favors light weight over heavy weight, saying many anglers use too much lead. He wants a worm to fall naturally and slowly, giving suspended or watching fish time to track it down. In many shallow Delta situations, he says a lightly rigged or even unweighted worm can outproduce heavier setups.
He also praises older lure styles that have faded from mainstream popularity, arguing that many classic baits still work extremely well. According to Green, the reason old baits “stop working” is often not that the bait got worse, but that fish got conditioned by repeated exposure and anglers moved on to the next trend.
What Has Changed on the Delta
One of the more important parts of the interview is Green’s view of how the Mobile-Tensaw Delta has changed over time. He believes fishing pressure, more advanced equipment, and increasingly educated fish have all made the system harder to fish than it was decades ago. In his view, anglers today are dealing with a fishery where fish have seen more lures, more boats, and more pressure than ever before.
He is also concerned about habitat loss from siltation. Green says many creeks, bayous, and backwater areas that once held deeper water are gradually filling in, reducing access and changing how water moves through the system. He points to places that once held crappie and bass in dependable depth now being noticeably shallower, and he worries that if those trends continue, the Delta will keep losing important fish habitat and water flow.
That concern ties back into the larger theme of the episode. Good anglers do not just pay attention to fish. They pay attention to systems. Water movement, depth, vegetation, access, and habitat quality all shape what the Delta can produce.
Lessons for Young Anglers
By the end of the conversation, Green’s best advice for young anglers is less about a lure or a spot and more about attitude. He urges younger fishermen to listen, pay attention, keep notes, and respect both the resource and the people trying to help them. Nick Williams points out that the best outdoorsmen often are not seeing different things than everyone else. They are simply noticing more, remembering more, and comparing what they see over time.
That may be the biggest takeaway from the episode. There is no shortcut to understanding the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, but there is a way to get better at it: fish with intention, keep records, study conditions, and stay curious enough to connect what happened today to what might happen next time.
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