Marty Stone learned plenty during his 20-year career as a professional bass fishermen, what with four Bassmaster Classic berths and four shots at the FLW Tour Championship under his belt.
May is a great bass-fishing month around South Carolina, and it’s special to me because it’s one of my favorite times to fish a lot of topwater baits. The two months when I catch a lot of fish on topwater are May and September — May because you have a lot of postspawn fish and September because they’re moving up as the water cools.
This month, guide Joel Richardson of Kernersville literally fishes Kerr Reservoir, aka Buggs Island from top to bottom, as bass make their way from the creeks into the main lake.
Lookout Shoals isn’t one of the biggest reservoirs in North Carolina, but its relative small size, 1,200 acres on the Catawba River between Lake Hickory and Lake Norman, is a big factor in it being one of the state’s best summer lakes for bass fishing.
June was once prime time for crankbait fishing at Tuckertown Lake, the 2,560-acre impoundment on the Yadkin River between High Rock and Badin lakes.
If you like fishing offshore structure for bass, then June is your month, and Falls of the Neuse is your lake. The lion’s share of largemouths will take up residence on deeper drops and ready to feed up after the spawn on schools of passing shad.
The bluegill and shad spawns add up to a big bonanza for bass fishermen on Lake Wateree this month, according to tournament angler Dearal Rodgers of Camden.
Summer is just around the corner, but fishing for stripers and hybrids is already heating up on Lake Hartwell, according to guide Chip Hamilton of Piedmont.
This month, anglers will have no problem locating largemouth bass on lakes as long as they’ll look in shallow coves. It’s not uncommon to see areas that stretch for hundreds of yards just full of bass beds cleared out in weedy coves. It will look like craters on the surface of the moon.
One of the best postspawn bass bites in late May at Kerr Lake fires up offshore of small islands along the west side of Nutbush Creek between the Hibernia and Henderson Point ramps, and on the lake’s northern shoreline from Eastland to Butchers creeks.
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