Blue Ribbon Blades

April is prime spinnerbait month for bass fishermen on this deep, normally clear reservoir.

Badin Lake, clear and deep in the old, round-topped Uwharrie Mountains, might seem on the surface to be the last place a bass fisherman would count on a spinnerbait.

See, those two words, “clear” and “deep” aren’t usually associated with a jingling, jangling collection of wires and oval-shaped pieces of metal, dressed in silicone and attached to a chunk of lead.

Just by design, spinnerbaits are meant to be used in shallow water, in water stained by runoff so bass don’t recognize that the flash of a spinning, copper-colored blade isn’t a baitfish swimming past. If the water is so clear that bass can see them coming and get a good look at them, there’s no mistaking them as something unnatural and to be avoided.

But don’t let appearances fool you. If there’s a lake in North Carolina more associated with spinnerbait fishing in the spring than Badin, an awful lot of good bass fishermen have never heard of it.

“A jig is where my heart is; if I can catch ’em on a jig, that’s what I’ll throw, but so often in April, they want a moving bait; you can catch a lot more fish on a spinnerbait at Badin,” said Kevin Chandler of All-American Guide Service, who guides out of his home in New London on reservoirs up and down the Yadkin-Pee Dee chain.

Veteran bass fisherman Don Rabon of Winston-Salem is even more succinct.

“April is a spinnerbait month at Badin,” he said. “You can fish a jig, and sure, you can catch ’em out on a Carolina rig, but why would you want to? Most of the time in April, a spinnerbait is all you need.”

So how does a bait designed to work best when it can’t be readily seen catch fish in a clear environment, much less one dominated by deep water?

Well, the bait doesn’t change. Fortunately, for about a month, the lake changes.

“Most of the time, Badin is clear. You can usually find some dingy water up in the river, and in March and April, when you’ve usually got a lot of wind, that will chop it up along the bank and get it dirty,” Rabon said. “The rest of the year, the only time it will get dingy is if you get a real big thunderstorm early in the summer. That’s the only other time you can really catch ’em on a spinnerbait.”

So with the problem of clear water eliminated, the bass themselves answer the deep-water question. With the water warming as March progresses and the urge to spawn stirring them, bass move into shallow water, planning to stay for a while.

“Toward the end of March, they definitely start moving — they get shallow with spawning on their minds,” said Chandler, who grew up close to Badin and still calls it his home lake. “At that point, you may be able to catch ’em on anything: crankbaits, spinnerbaits or jigs. They’re in a feeding frenzy; they’ll eat whatever is available.

“The last week of March and the first of April, a crankbait should probably be the deal, but as you get into April, the spinnerbait takes over. There will be a spinnerbait bite all the way through the end of May.”

And that’s when the makeup of the lake takes over. Covering 5,620 acres, Badin is situated in the Uwharries, among the world’s oldest geological mountain groups. At different points along its banks, it forms the border between Davidson, Rowan, Montgomery and Stanly counties, and because of the mountainous nature of the area, most of those banks contain rocks.

Lots of rocks.

“I concentrate on rocky banks,” Chandler said. “It seems like the rocks just draw ’em in. They like to get on rocky banks. A lot of the bigger fish will go in first, then, the big wave will come in after them.”

What about the timing?

“If the water temperature gets into the mid-50s, I’m looking for a spinnerbait bite. It can be around rocks or tree laps or even the bank grass. I start looking for a spinnerbait bite, because there will be one out there somewhere. You’ve just got to go fishing and figure out where the bigger fish are,” Chandler said.

Rabon starts by heading up the main body of the lake. He likes to fish the area around Old Whitney, Gar Creek and Lane’s Chapel (near the Uwharrie Point golf development).

“I like fishing all the little pockets along the main channel as soon as you turn to go up the river,” he said. “The water will warm up a little faster up there because it will be stained, and being that it’s late March and April, you’ll catch your biggest fish because they’ll be full of eggs.”

Chandler works creeks all over the lake, progressing from near the mouth of the creeks all the way to the backs. A period of consistent wind from one direction can “blow” bait into the backs of certain creeks, and that situation will put Chandler all the way back in the shallowest of water.

“I always start at the mouth of the creeks and work my way back; I’ve caught ’em from front to back, because they don’t all go in at the same time,” Chandler said. “If the wind blows shad into the back, you might find ’em in two feet of water back there.

“I think the fish in the area around Circle Drive and Gladys Fork and Fish Tales (Marina) will turn on before the fish from Alcoa to Old Whitney,” he said.

Rabon attacks by fishing parallel to the bank, keeping his bait in a strike zone from the bank to five feet deep.

“By the first of April, they should be in shallow water,” he said. “I’ll fish rocks and laydown trees. It will be early May before the bank grass (canary reed grass) gets up, but you can catch ’em in late April around the dead grass. They’ll get on the edge of it. They’ll hit a Texas rig in there, but that time of year it’s hard to lay that blade down.

“You can also fish the little places between boat docks where they’re going to spawn later on. I don’t really fish docks in the spring, but you can catch a few around docks in Lake Forest (Fish Tales) and way back in the creeks.”

Chandler also pays attention to the bank grass. “It’s going to start to green up in April, but if the weather stays cold, it could be on into May,” he said. “When the grass first starts to grow, they’ll get in it, but it will be under the surface. You’ll be fishing in three feet of water, and the grass will be up about a foot off the bottom; it will look like a dark spot.”

When it comes to a blade, Chandler will fish two basic models: a half-ounce War Eagle or CW Special in Indiana/Colorado or double willow-leaf combinations. He likes a basic chartreuse/white color combo, although he loves War Eagle’s “spot remover” combo that adds grey to the chartreuse and white. He adds a Burke split-tail trailer to the CW Special — the design of the War Eagle’s skirt eliminates the necessity of a trailer.

Besides the allure of a month-long spinnerbait bite, another big draw for bass fishermen to spend time on Badin is the quality of the fishery. Badin is known to be a big-bass lake — maybe not on the scale of some of the “newer” reservoirs in the Raleigh-Durham area because it’s close to 90 years old — but better than most other lakes in the western Piedmont.

“You will catch some good, quality fish at Badin,” Rabon said. “You won’t catch the numbers you’ll catch at High Rock; you’ll catch more 3- to 4-pound fish there, but you’ve got a better chance to catch bass five pounds and up at Badin.”