Lunker city

Shearon Harris Lake remains an amazing place for trophy largemouths — if anglers put in the time to learn its secrets.

Ask a Triangle-area bass fisherman what North Carolina lake he’d fish if he had one day on earth to throw a Texas-rigged worm, and nine of 10 probably would choose the smallest major impoundment within driving distance of Raleigh.

At 4,100 acres, Shearon Harris Lake, a Duke Energy impoundment is one-third the size of nearby Falls of the Neuse and Jordan lakes. What makes Harris so much fun to fish, especially in May, is that it appears to have perhaps three times the number of largemouths as Falls and Jordan and only God knows how many more magnum-sized bass.

And in May, these fish are as hungry as a pack of wolves, so if you want to load up on lunkers this month, Harris is the place to be.

However, as one can imagine, the little Y-shaped impoundment within a few crankbait casts of Raleigh gets hammered. If bass can become educated about lures, Harris’s chubs should belong to the magna cum laude fish club. But a lot of anglers come away from a day at the lake wondering, “Laude, how cum I didn’t catch one?”

Josh Hooks of New Hill, which is almost literally in the shadow of the Harris nuclear plant’s cooling tower, rarely zeros on the lake because he’s so often a hero. Long-time guide and pro fisherman Jeff Thomas of Broadway calls Hooks “the best tournament bass fisherman at Harris right now.”

Barely wet behind the ears, Hooks, 25, already has a list of fishing accomplishments much older anglers would be proud to claim. While at N.C. State — where he earned a degree in Fisheries/Wildlife and Conservation Biology, Hooks spent five years as a member of the BassPack fishing team, finishing sixth in the 2012 national collegiate championship.

“It was great being in the BassPack, because we were an official, school-sponsored group, so the teachers had to give us time off for tournaments,” he said. “They also had to let us make up tests and turn in homework later. I’d walk (into class) and say, ‘Well, I’m going fishing for two weeks.’ I told everyone I graduated in Bass Fishing 101.”

Hooks is working on a graduate degree in lunker hunting at Harris, and he’s caught the eye of Thomas — and there’s no better authority on Harris bass than Thomas.

“He’s winning or placing high in most of the tournaments at Harris,” Thomas said. “And Josh isn’t old school like me. He’s doing some new things.”

However, Hooks does take the old-school approach to locating bass in May. That hasn’t changed for anybody.

“Most of the bass will be post-spawn,” he said, “but some will be on the beds, just like at Kerr Lake and Lake Gaston.”

Shearon Harris is famous for its aquatic grasses: hydrilla and milfoil, along with primrose. The hydrilla and milfoil begin to “green up” this month, but primrose sprigs have been growing full bore since March.

“A lot of people are anti-hydrilla,” Hooks said. “It’s good to a certain extent for bass, but if you get too much of it in a lake, it can choke out the oxygen.”

Not long ago, Duke Energy stocked 4,000 grass carp into the lake and, Hooks said, “They’ve eaten a lot of the grass. On cold days, you can see carp exploding along the shoreline.”

However, Hooks said he hopes the carp don’t completely eradicate the vegetation. He favors the western side of the lake because the underwater growth — which provides a haven for baitfish and ambush spots for predatory species such as bass — is protected from the wind and holds more fish.

“The grass grows well there, so I throw some lures near the edges of the grass and some right into it,” he said.

Another reason to fish around the gras in May is the threadfin shad that spawn in the greenery.

“As long as you throw anything white, you’ll usually do well,” Hook said. “I throw a frog, a spinnerbait or a chatterbait. They’ll whack one of them. If I can see a bedding bass, I’ll throw a white frog.”

Hooks said he set a one-day BassPack record of five bass weighing 24 pounds while using a white frog.

“One time before, I had a kid in the boat with me, and I was in the front and he was in the back, and he dusted me pretty good,” said Hooks, who didn’t have a white lure to throw — his partner did.

“When he threw a white Senko behind my frog, he’d catch fish,” Hooks said. “He landed 24 pounds of bass. I had some 4 1/2- and 5-pounders, but he did too, and (he) capped it off with an 8-pounder. I learned something right there about throwing white frogs in the grass in the spring.”

Hooks said he’s done the same thing during tournaments and gotten into the heads of anglers in other boats.

“I kind of like fishing behind other people,” he said. “The secret’s not really a secret though; it’s just a matter of slowing down and working the water more thoroughly than they do.”

Hooks said the most important tactic he’s learned is to have patience. Competitive anglers, he said, have a tendency to roar into a cove, fan-cast a few times, maybe change lures if they’re not successful, quickly cast a few more times, then jump behind the wheel, turn the ignition key, put the hammer down and go to another spot.

That’s a mistake, Hooks noted.

“I’d say fish slow and consistent,” Hook said. “I win a lot of Wednesday night tournaments by crawling along in my ’89 Ranger. I tell ’em, ‘Y’all might beat me there, but they won’t stay long enough to find out what’s there.’ It’s two casts and they’re gone.”

Hooks said he discovered that sometimes he can drag a Carolina-rigged plastic worm or a swimbait “down a postspawn point, and there’d be no grass, and it’d feel like my lure was stuck on the bottom, but I’d catch one — and there might be 50 more bass around one little piece of grass.”

The swimbait is one of Hooks’ “secrets”, and Thomas recognizes that.

“Harris bass see the same lures a LOT,” said Thomas. “So Josh throws a swimbait, something most of the bass in the lake haven’t seen, and he catches a lot more fish with that bait than anyone else.”

Hooks said one of the top places he targets post-spawn largemouth bass are bends of creek channels just as the bottom starts to break and become deeper, from six to 10 feet.

“I like to look for the first deeper water (out) from coves and spawning flats,” Hooks said. “A post-spawn creek channel bend can be a dynamite spot.”

A lot of anglers would like to use a trick worm on those kinds of places, but Harris has joined a growing list of impoundments with “snot grass” (Spirogyra), a smelly, black, decaying algae-type plant that fouls soft-plastic lures worked near the bottom. Hooks solved that problem by casting a trick worm in dark natural colors — green pumpkin, red shad, June bug or blackberry — but using a light bullet weight.

“It keeps the lure out of the black snot,” he said. “I like a Deep Creek trick worm because it doesn’t sink as fast as other trick worms.”

DESTINATION INFORMATION

HOW TO GET THERE/WHEN TO GO — Shearon Harris Lake is slightly east of US 1 between Raleigh and Sanford. The lake is served by two public ramps: Crosspoint on Christian Church Road — take Corinth Road from US 1 — and Holleman’s Landing on Holleman Road off off Welfare Road. April and May are the best bass-fishing months of the year. Look for bass attacking shad on the surface in main-lake coves, and check out long, sloping points with rocks, stumps and deep-water access.

BEST LURES/TECHNIQUES — Floating worms and trick worms are effective worked in the grass, along with weedless frog or rat lures, in white. Swimbaits and Chatterbaits are also productive worked through vegetation. Use medium-action, 7- to 7 1/2-foot baitcasting rods with 15- to 17-pound fluourocarbon or braided line. Reels with a fast retrieve ratio work the best.

GUIDES/FISHING INFO — Jeff Thomas, Carolina Outdoors, 919-770-4654, www.carolinaoutdoors.net. See also Guides and Charters in Classifieds.

ACCOMMODATIONS — America’s Best Value Inn, Sanford, 919- 776-5121; Quality Inn, Sanford, 919-774-6411; Budget Inn, Sanford, 919-775-2814; Days Inn, Sanford, 919-776-3150.

MAPS — Kingfisher Maps, 800-326-0257, www.kfmaps.com.