On the Level

Stable summer water makes Lake Gaston a great shallow-water bass fishery.

Summer around North Carolina usually means rising air temperatures and falling lake levels, with one major exception: Lake Gaston.

Gaston, located on the North Carolina-Virginia state line, will always be within one foot of its full-pool level, one way or the other, due to a mandate given the power company that owns the lake.

So there’s plenty of water, even when other lakes are dropping. But Gaston is full of more than water. June offers many opportunities to boat some of it’s fine largemouth bass.

Bass pro Randy Howell is no stranger to Lake Gaston. His parents owned a business on the lake, and he began guiding and fishing tournaments at 11 years of age. He honed his skills there, progressing enough to become an 8-time Bassmasters Classic qualifier. When he and his wife, Robin, moved to Alabama in 1998, he was introduced to a variation on his “skinny-water junk” tactics that added to his arsenal.

“This technique is still in the early stages and right now; there aren’t many people fishing the shallow cover this way,” Howell said. “It should only get better from here.”

Two of his best finishes on the BASS Elite Series, a win on Arkansas’ Lake Dardanelle in 2004 and a third-place finish on Tennessee’s Old Hickory Lake in 2008, came with Howell “junk fishing.”

The technique paid off for Howell in those two tournaments, and it could provide big dividends for Lake Gaston regulars.

Howell defines junk as the standing cover in shallow-water cuts and coves found on most every freshwater lake in the country, including Lake Gaston.

“I don’t worry how nasty it looks because my set-up lets me fish it in the thickest of stuff,” Howell said. “In June, I look closer to the main-lake points than in the backs of the coves because the fish are moving out to their summer hangouts.

“Long casts are necessary so the fish don’t spook. The less chance the fish have to being aware that you are there, the better. When the cover is really thick, cast in the middle of the thickest stuff. That’s where you’ll appreciate the braided line.

“On the retrieve, keep your rod tip high and make a snapping motion with the rod, keeping the lure in sight near the surface. If the water is clear, you can fish it a little deeper, but still make it snap,” he said. “Keep the lure moving quickly, giving it an erratic movement with the snapping of the rod tip, almost like a popping action. It really has to pulse under the surface and make a lot of movement. I can’t stress that enough. This is where you’ll appreciate the shorter, lighter rod.”

Howell tosses a Jig-X jig by Vertical Lures with a Yamamoto Twin Tail trailer about 75 percent of the time.

“The grub gives the bait a good profile, lets it swim good and with nice action,” Howell said. “It doesn’t slow down the jig, either, allowing me to keep the speed up on the retrieve.

“When I’m fishing extremely shallow, or if I have to slow the speed, I switch to the Vertical Lures Chunk-X. It has a bit more bulk than the grub, so I can still work the bait effectively regardless of the conditions.”

Howell pointed out another benefit to the braided line and the type of head on the Jig-X.

“The way the braided line goes through the Jig-X lets it make a ticking sound as you pop the lure this way, adding to the attraction of this bait,” he said. “Also, the braided line has no stretch, which is incredibly important to setting the hook in the short amount of time that you have to see the fish bite and respond.

“This is a very fast style of fishing and you have to keep moving and cover a lot of water. Until you get used to it, it will still wear you out, and I think that’s why most fishermen aren’t doing this much, but if you stay at it, you’ll definitely catch quality fish.”

Howell’s retrieve is similar to the one he uses when fishing a buzzbait; it generates reaction strikes rather than the feeding type of strike.

“The jig, though,” he said, “is more subtle than a buzzbait, not making the commotion on the top that the buzzbait does. It’s also important that you don’t make a big splash when it hits the water. This keeps the fish from knowing it’s there until it gets right on them. Then it’s pure reaction.”

Scott Kerslake, a Lake Gaston guide, targets certain kinds of cover and areas of the lake when he’s looking for shallow bass in June.

“I fish a lot of the docks on the points of the main-lake pockets,” said Kerslake, a retired Marine with 27 years of service and several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan who has been fishing Gaston for many years and has been guiding the past four years.

“The baits I use depend a lot on how much hydrilla and shoreline grass is available,” Kerslake said. “The homeowners association has been spraying and dropping tablets in all the grass they can find, mostly on the lower lake from the dam to about the I-85 bridge. There’s still spots up the river you might find the grass, but it’s pretty much gone from the lower end. If you are lucky enough to find some grass,” Kerslake start, “start there by throwing some 10-worms, jigs or Carolina rigs.

“Without the grass, I go to the docks and throw a wacky-worm rig with a Jackall wacky jig. I also like to use the Berkley hollow-body swimbaits, skipping them under the same type of docks. I also like to work Dave’s Tackle jigs around the docks to catch some of the deeper fish.”

Kerslake says the best docks are on points close to a creek-channel swing.

“You can use the swim bait to cover a lot of water and a lot of docks,” he said.

Howell and Kerslake agree that the area upstream from I-85 can be productive because it contains many laydowns and some of the remaining vegetation in the lake.

“Really, anywhere that there are weeds or grass growing up out of the water, or where lily pads or fallen trees or brush is sticking out of the water is a great place to start,” Howell said. “If the water is clear, you can fish deeper, but when you get past five or six feet, it’s not nearly as effective.”

There’s another plus for that section of the lake, according to Kerslake.

“Getting above I-85 also can get you away from the skiers and jet skis if they get too bad on the main lake. A good place to start is the big stump flat next to
I-85.”