Get back in a creek, cover a lot of water and load up on Lake Tillery’s fall bass.
Dylan Fulk had his trolling motor on high and his baitcasting rod in perpetual motion, firing casts at just about any piece of visible cover as he worked a bank in Lake Tillery’s Jacobs Creek.
Cast to a dock. Cast to a laydown. Cast to a stump. Cast to the edge of a grass bed. Cast. Cast. Cast.
To Fulk, a 25-year-old aspiring bass pro from Concord, that’s the perfect equation for loading your boat with largemouth bass from Tillery, a 5,260-acre reservoir on the Yadkin-Pee Dee River system in the southern Piedmont.
The Yadkin River becomes the Pee Dee at its confluence with the Uwharrie River in the upper end of Lake Tillery. Fulk focuses most of his efforts on the lower end, below the NC 24/27 bridge that crosses the lake between Albemarle and Troy.
“Fall is the best season to fish Tillery,” he said. “The water is cooling off, there’s been a shad spawn and there’s tons of bait in the lake, and the bass start eating everything.
The turnover is usually done by the first of October, and the fish are moving back into creeks. The fishing won’t change much from the first of the month to the end. It will be November before they move anywhere.
“The (surface) water temperature will basically be anywhere between 54 and 64 degrees. I don’t care too much about the water temperature as long as it’s in that 10-degree range. It doesn’t matter because the fish are active through all of that range.”
Fulk will start halfway back in major creeks on the lower end of the lake — Jacobs, Richmond, Lower Richmond, Rocky, Swift Island and Cedar — and work his way back, casting to just about everything he can.
“You’re looking for nice, clear water, deeper pockets, steeper banks. Clear water would bother you most of the year, but not in the fall,” he said. “I think you can catch fish anywhere in the lake, but the majority of the fish are from halfway back to the backs of the creeks.
“What I really look for is an area with a lot of targets. My philosophy is, the more casts I make, the more fish I’ll catch in the fall. You can cast to bank grass, docks, laydowns. I don’t want to fish a laydown, then put my trolling motor on high and go 50 yards to fish another one. I want to hit as many targets as possible.
“Bass are going to relate to bait,” he said. “If there’s no bait in a creek, there’s no point fishing. But you get some moving water, and that keeps the shad fresh and stacked up. Those fish will sit under a laydown and just lay there until a shad swims past.”
Fulk has two main baits he ties on in the fall: a Rico popping bait and a Storm Arashi Silent Square square-billed crankbait.
“A Rico is my No. 1 go-to bait in the fall,” he said. “It’s the only time of year you can catch them on topwaters all day: sunny, no sun, ripples on the water, no ripples. The fish are always eating it. I mostly use shad colors like white and pearl. The other thing I like is a silent, square-billed crankbait, one with no rattle. Arashi is a really good one.
Fulk fishes the topwater bait on a 7-foot, medium-action ABU Garcia Veritas rod and Revo reel with a 7-to-1 retrieve ratio spooled with 40-pound Spiderwire. He fishes the little crankbait on a 6 1/2-foot Veritas rod and Revo with 12-pound fluorocarbon.
Fulk loves to find a stretch of creek that has a steep bank on one side and a flatter, less-sloping bank on the other. He’ll go down the flat bank with a Rico, then go down the steeper bank with the crankbait.
“One day, I’ll catch 75 percent of my fish on the flat side, then go back the next day and catch 75 percent on the steep side,” he said. “I don’t have an answer for that.
“If I find a creek that’s got good fish, I’ll run it with a crankbait, then come back an hour later and run it with a topwater. I think in the fall, you can go back and pick fish up that didn’t bite the first time.
“I like the little square-billed crankbait; it’s a good search bait. You’re searching an area and throwing to every laydown. You put it right on top of them and they don’t have to chase. You can take a square-bill and you can bounce it off limbs, and the square bill will bounce the hooks away and you won’t get hung up so much.”
Fulk said he’ll often switch baits for laydowns with particular features.
“A lot of laydowns are mostly underwater, and you fish them with a crankbait or a jig,” he said. “You get one that’s closer to the surface, you fish the topwater, because those fish will be holding higher in the water column.”
Fulk makes sure he has at least one different lure tied on when he’s fishing topwaters or small crankbaits: a jig.
“Anytime I see a fish flash on a crankbait or a topwater and they don’t get it, it’s really important to have a jig tied on,” Fulk said. “I keep one out on deck.
“I’ll fish a black/blue or green pumpkin jig made by 911 Custom Lures,” he said. “On a black/blue jig, I like to fish a bunch of different trailers, big and bulky ones like a Zoom Super Chunk. On a green pumpkin jig, I’ll fish a soft swimbait trailer. It will allow me to get more out of a cast. When you’re flipping it, it’s a reaction bite, but with a swimbait trailer, you can swim it all the way back.”
Fulk likes a 3/8-inch jig when he’s fishing laydowns, and most of the time, he fishes green pumpkin. If he’s fishing a dock, he’ll fish a 1/2-ounce black/blue jig with a chunk. He fishes them on a 7-foot ABU Garcia Veritas baitcaster, heavy action with a fast tip, and a Revo reel loaded with 20-pound fluorocarbon.
Tillery is full of 2 1/2- to 3-pound bass, Fulk said, and the fishing pressure it gets is relatively low compared to other reservoirs on the Yadkin chain or Lake Wylie or Lake Norman close to Charlotte.
“There’s so little boat traffic in the fall, so little fishing pressure, that you’re never fishing behind anybody else,” he said. “All of the creeks on the lower end usually have good water, and you can fish the same pattern for days without tracking back over yourself.”
When bass move all the way into the backs of the feeder creeks, Fulk will put away his normal baits and just fan-cast a lipless crankbait.
“Start in the middle of the pocket and just fish all the way around,” he said. “I catch 90 percent of my fish in the backs of creeks doing that with a lipless crankbait.”
DESTINATION INFORMATION
HOW TO GET THERE — Lake Tillery is on the Yadkin/Pee Dee River system, downstream from Badin Lake and upstream from Blewett Falls Lake. It serves as part of the border between Montgomery and Stanly counties. The best access is from NC 24/27, which crosses at mid-lake, and US 52, which skirts the west side of the lake. Swift Island Access is at the NC 24/27 bridge; Stony Mountain Access is about 1 1/2 miles south of Swift Island on SR 1803; Norwood Access is about 5 miles east of US 52 off Lakeshore Drive; Lillys Bridge Access is on the east side of the lake, about 5 miles off NC 73 on Lillys Bridge Road.
WHEN TO GO — Bass fishing on Tillery really turns on after the lake turns over in late September and it continues through October and into November.
BEST TECHNIQUES — Start halfway back in major creeks and fish back, targeting visible cover of all kinds with topwater baits and shallow-running, square-billed crankbaits. Have a rod-and-reel combination with a jig tied on to use as a follow-up bait when bass strike at the moving baits and miss. In the extreme backs of creeks, fan-cast the entire area with a lipless crankbait.
FISHING INFO/GUIDES — Maynard Edwards, Yadkin Lakes Guide Service, 336-249-6782; Joe’s Bait & Tackle, Albemarle, 704-982-8716. See also Guides and Charters in Classifieds.
ACCOMMODATIONS — Stanly County Chamber of Commerce, 704 983-5000, www.stanlychamber.org; Lakes Online, www.tillery.lakesonline.com/Visiting.
MAPS — Navioncs, www.navionics.com.
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