June is prime time on one of North Carolina’s most-underrated reservoirs.
High Rock Lake is a reservoir on the Yadkin River south of Lexington that covers approximately 15,000 surface acres of water.
It’s perhaps never received the notoriety of bigger lakes such as Buggs Island or Gaston, nor that of lakes perched on the outskirts of major metropolitan areas such as Wylie, Falls of the Neuse, Jordan or Shearon Harris.
But make no bones about it; High Rock should take a backseat to none of the above.
A tremendously fertile reservoir, High Rock usually carries a nice stain, almost year-round “spinnerbait” color. Its bass fishery is excellent; its crappie fishery is excellent; its fishery for flathead and channel catfish is excellent. In recent years, as striper fishermen have left disappointing fisheries at other lakes and flocked to High Rock, it’s become obvious that the striper fishery is also pretty darned good.
The other thing visiting fishermen need to know is that High Rock is largely an offshore fishery. The rolling hills of the Piedmont and the western edge of the ancient Uwharrie Mountains provide the canvas for a lake marked by humps and ridges well off the bank that hold tremendous numbers of fish Except during the spring, if you’re going to harvest the best that High Rock has to offer, you’d better not be fishing the banks — even though they’re lined with boat docks.
Maynard Edwards of Lexington has been fishing High Rock for the better part of 30 years. A retired high school teacher, he’s been operating Yadkin Lakes Guide Service for a decade, doing most of his business on weekends and when school’s out for the summer. He’s taken parties out for largemouth bass, catfish, crappie, stripers and white bass, and he knows the lake intimately — especially those places well off the bank that hold fish.
June is one of the best months to be on the water because, for most species, it’s the first month they’re back on their feed after the spawn. Bass are biting again; stripers have made their way back down the river to main-lake areas; crappie are starting to congregate on offshore structure and cover. Catfish are, well, they’re catfish, biting better as the water warms toward summer.
Here are a handful of Edwards’ favorite spots for a variety of species:
1 Ridge Mouth of Abbotts Creek
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A rock ridge runs off the bank on the northern (upstream) point at the mouth of Abbotts Creek, and Edwards said it’s a fish magnet — especially for striped bass.
“The bait stays on this place all year,” he said. “The ridge pushes way out; it’s 15 to 18 feet deep on top and 32 feet deep on either side. Everybody sees the (shoal) buoy and fishes it, but the stripers get way out here on the end of it.
“They’re usually coming back down the river in June, and they’re looking for the first place where they can push bait up toward the surface.’
Edwards likes to drift live shad back and forth across the ridge for stripers. He noted that crappie will also get on top of the ridge, so he’ll usually have several rods rigged with a two-hook bottom rig anchored by a 1-ounce bell sinker he can bounce along the bottom to fish live minnows for slab crappie.
2 Doctor’s Neck
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Almost directly across the main lake from the mouth of Abbotts Creek, Doctor’s Neck is a small creek just downstream from the mouth of Second Creek. The big drawing card is a large hump right in the middle of the creek mouth, a hump Edwards said is about 75 yards in diameter.
“The shallowest point on the top is about 8 feet deep, but you’ve got 30 feet of water on the river side of the hump where it starts to come up,” he said. “There are a lot of stumps on top of the hump and crappie stay on it about nine months out of the year. The crappie get on it in early March when they’re getting ready to spawn, then they spread out all over (Doctor’s Neck) when they spawn. When they start to move back out to deep water, they’ll come to it. They’ll stay on it all summer.
“I can troll (jigs) around it until I find the depth they’re using, then I’ll go to a bottom rig with live minnows,” said Edwards, who added that he catches an occasional striper on the hump but rarely any largemouth bass.
3 The Striper Hole
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Another offshore spot, this one is at the opening of a large area called “Black’s Bottom.”
Edwards describes it as a ridge running perpendicular to the river channel, rising up out of 30 feet of water to single-digit depths on top, and he catches stripers, largemouth bass and white bass on it regularly.
“I’ve fished it with everything you can think of. You can get on top of it and fish out, or get on the side of it and throw up on top,” he said. “Stripers will stay on it all summer. I’ll fish live bait for stripers, or you can catch them on crankbaits. You’d better check it anytime you fish in June, and you’d better make sure your drag is set good or you’ll lose a crankbait.”
4 The Gap
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This is one of High Rock’s better-known “community holes” for largemouth bass, and with good reason. It’s easy to find and almost as easy to fish.
The “gap” actually refers to the back of a creek channel where it runs under railroad tracks that cross the back of a wide bay. Edwards said the creek winds out to the main river, but the channel is not the drawing card. A set of abandoned railroad tracks, now submerged, spans the bay from north to south — it’s the same submerged railroad bed that’s marked with buoys just outside the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission boating-access area at the NC 8 bridge over Abbotts Creek.
“This is part of the old, original railroad,” Edwards said. “There’s some kind of break where there used to be an old bridge over the creek that goes back into the Gap. It’s really just a big, long rock pile.
“It’s a great bass place,” said Edwards, noting that both David Fritts and Kevin Van Dam fished it extensively when the Bassmaster Classic visited High Rock several times in the 1990s. “You can sit out and cast up on it and retrieve back down the drop, but my favorite way is to get on top of it and throw right down the edge and keep my crankbait in that 12- to 16-foot range.”
Edwards said you can fish the old railroad bed with a Carolina rig, but it’s the perfect depth to hit with a deep-diving crankbait, which has always been a favorite bait on High Rock.
“It will be hot in June and July,” he said. “Some stripers like to get on it early in the morning; it’s one of the best striper-schooling places on the lake, because the river sweeps past the mouth of the bay and they can get on it.”
5 One Bush
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Probably the most-famous community hole for bass fishermen on High Rock, One Bush is named, aptly, for one willow bush that sits on top of a large hump at the mouth of a wide bay on the western side of the lake.
“This is one of the best bass holes around,” Edwards said. “People have gone out and cut that bush down to nothing no telling how many times to keep anybody from finding it. Right now, it’s as big as I’ve ever seen it. I guess nobody’s been messing with it.”
Edwards suggests fishing all around the bush – which sits directly on top of the hump – with a Carolina rig, a crankbait or a big jig.
“There’s a rock vein on one side of it, and there are some stumps on it. There’s a little saddle that runs back toward the nearest point; you should fish it, too. Just go all the way around it, throwing right up at the bush. You can have your boat in 20 feet of water and hit the bush with a good cast.”
Edwards said One Bush starts to get productive right before the spawn; bass will stage on it before moving back in the little necks in the bay to fan out beds. When the spawn is over, they stop on it as they head back toward deep water, and they’ll move up and feed on it all summer.
6 Panther Creek Catfish Hole
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This is one of Edwards’ favorite spots to catch channel catfish on High Rock. It’s a long point at the mouth of Panther Creek, the last creek on the western side of the lake heading downstream before you reach High Rock Dam.
Edwards said it’s really a hump at the end of a long point that separates the mouth of the creek from a wide flat just upstream. The hump has several “fingers” that extend out at different angles.
“It’s not a steep drop; just a place where the bait usually stays,” Edwards said. “The creek channel gets out next to it; it’s 15 feet deep on top and you’ve got 30 feet of water all around it.
“The stripers and bass will get on it, but the channel cats are really there in bunches.”
Edwards likes to slow-troll or “stroll” for cats with cut bait, with white perch and shad being the most-desirable baits. He’ll ease his boat around, using only his electric trolling motor for propulsion, and drift his baits along the bottom and covering a lot of ground.
“When I fish this spot, I like to ride over it. If you do that, and if you see bait close to the bottom (on his depth finder), you’d better stop and fish it.”
7 Sailboat Cut Flat
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Nicknamed for the boating clientele that frequents a small marina just inside the mouth of the creek, the best fishing spot in Sailboat Cut is actually on the outside.
“This is a big flat on the edge of the creek channel coming out of the cut,” Edwards said. “It’s on the north side, so you ride across the creek channel, and as soon as (the bottom) starts to come up on the flat, you start fishing it.”
Edwards said it’s an excellent flat to catch catfish from June through August, with an occasional striper showing up.
“The biggest channel cat I’ve ever caught at High Rock, I caught right here,” Edwards said, describing a 16-pound fish. “We figure we’ll break the state record eventually on this spot.”
Edwards said the flat, dotted with chunk rock and stumps, runs for several hundred yards.
“There’s really not a lot to it; it’s just a flat they move up on to feed,” he said. “I just set up and stroll and meander around on it with cut bait on the bottom.
“There’s one pier on the northern end of the flat. I’ll fish the whole flat to that pier, then turn around and go back.”
8 Fisherman’s Cove Flat
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One of Edwards’ favorite summertime crappie holes is a big flat outside the mouth of Fisherman’s Cove, another cut approximately a quarter mile or so upstream from Sailboat Cut on the eastern side of the lake.
“There’s a big, old stump flat that covers about an acre on the left side just before you go back in the cove,” Edwards said. “You can catch crappie in June and July, slow-trolling crappie jigs or live minnows.”
Edwards explained that crappie head out of the creek after the spawn and set up on the flat, patrolling it and looking for baitfish.
“It’s a real good crappie place,” Edwards said. “There’s a seawall on the north end of the flat, and I’ll troll all the way to the seawall and back. I’ll fish it with a bottom rig, but I’ve got a buddy who long-line trolls, and he waxes them in 6 to 8 feet of water.”
9 Hump, Mouth of Crane Creek
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The river channel sweeps close to the mouth of Crane Creek on the western banks of High Rock, making for a very interesting situation.
“The creek channel runs out into the river, and it splits around a buoy that marks a hump,” Edwards said. “You want to fish from the creek channel to the boathouse and pier on the point at the mouth of the creek. The boathouse and the house on the point are hard to miss.”
Edwards said that channel catfish and stripers will move out of the river channel and feed up on the big, wide flat. He’ll drag cut bait along the bottom for both species, easing his boat back and forth across the flat on his trolling motor.
10 White Bass Hole
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Back in Abbott’s Creek, about half a mile after you pass under the N.C. 8 bridge, is a hump that Edwards has fished for years and years. On the northern side of the creek, the hump comes up to 12 feet out of 18 feet of water.
“Some of the older fishermen used to come here and catch big white bass, and a lot of people still troll bucktails over the hump and catch big white bass,” said Edwards, who is most interested in the largemouth bass that sometimes cover it up.
“All the bass fishermen catch bass on it.”
The hump has good dropoffs on all sides, and Edwards said there are a couple of rock veins running across it that attract baitfish and, in turn, bass.
“I have really caught some big bass on this hump,” he said. “You can catch them on a crankbait, a Carolina rig or a big jig, but I really love to throw a Poe’s 400P (crankbait) here. Whooeee!”
Maynard Edwards of Yadkin Lakes Guide Service can be reached at 336-249-6782 or www.extremefishingconcepts.com.
