Steam Machine

Belews Lake is the Piedmont area’s top spot for cold-weather, ‘hot-water’ bass fishing.

From mid-February through mid-March, bass fishing often grinds almost to a halt in North Carolina because of cold weather.Only the hardiest of fishermen venture to big impoundments because chances of catching a largemouth are slim. Not only that, but you have to fish slow, because bass are too lethargic to chase baits. For anglers, that means sitting in a boat while biting winds swirl, barely turning a reel handle, which doesn’t help eliminate the chill factor.

Simply put, bass fishing at most lakes in late winter and early spring can be as uncomfortable for anglers as it is for fish. Moreover, February is usually the year’s coldest month, and early March isn’t much better, except in the state’s southernmost areas.

Conventional wisdom has it that bass are inactive at most impoundments, especially in late February, and they probably would be impossible to catch if it weren’t for the coming spawn. Luckily for anglers, March’s prespawn kick starts feeding activity, but with water temperatures in the high 40s and low 50s, bass aren’t ready to really put on the feed bag. That won’t happen until the water temperature approaches the 60-degree mark, which doesn’t happen at most lakes until at least the middle of March.

But thanks to hot-water discharges associated with power plants, a handful of lakes in the Tarheel State hold water temperatures in the 60s year-round — even if snow or ice covers the shoreline and air temps hover near or below freezing. And bass are active at those temperatures.

One such reservoir is Belews Lake, a 3,864-acre, man-made impoundment just north of Kernersville. Duke Energy began building the lake in 1968, and when it opened for business in 1973, it featured the largest coal-fired steam plant in North Carolina. Water discharges keep Belews’ waters at a uniform 60 degrees in winter, even when the surrounding air temperature plummets.

It’s also where bass pro Joel Richardson learned about fishing, because he could catch largemouths any time he wanted.

“I’m not sure the rise in temperature activates the fish in hot-water lakes, especially Belews Lake,” said Richardson, 40, a 20-year-veteran of tournament fishing who qualified for three consecutive Red Man All-Americans, won the 1996 event, took the 1999 points championship, then won an FLW Tour event and six-figure payday. “I think what activates bass in March at hot-water lakes is the days getting longer. I think that factor spurs fish to move shallow because they know what’s coming.”

At Belews Lake, which straddles the borders of Stokes, Forsyth and Rockingham counties near the towns of Walnut Cove, Belews Creek, Stokesdale and Pine Hall, the spawn comes earlier than at most lakes, Richardson said. But not all bass in the lake head for the shallows at the same time.

“There are days you can catch fish in shallow water at Belews in February and March and still back off and catch them in deep water,” he said. “Not all the bass here go to the banks at the same time. I think it’s because there are several distinct groups of bass that stay together, and they don’t mingle that much.”

Richardson said the spawn covers three months — February, March and early April — which is the reason bass can be scattered from deep to shallow.

“I’ve seen the prespawn start during February at Belews. The prespawn is when I generally catch my biggest bass,” said Richardson, who landed a 10-pound, 9-ounce lunker one March a few years ago. “But I’ve also seen bass bedding by the end of February at Belews, but that usually happens when we’ve had a mild winter.”

For a piedmont reservoir, Belews Lake is surprisingly deep, with an average depth of 100 feet. Its deepest parts are 130 feet deep, so bass have become accustomed to orienting at deep structure.

“Now, most people don’t fish a drop-shot rig for prespawn or spawning fish, but I catch a lot of bass with the drop shot when it’s cold here,” he said. “The neat thing about days of good drop-shot fishing is most of these schooling fish will be the same size, from three to four pounds. If you can get on a school in deep water at Belews, you can catch bass after bass about the same size.”

Richardson’s technique to find deep-water bass is to cruise the lake in his Ranger bass boat, using his Lowrance depthfinder to find concentrates of bass and threadfin shad, the primary forage fish.

“I don’t necessarily have to see baitfish with my depthfinder to find bass, but it doesn’t hurt,” he said. “I think sometimes bass get oriented on the rocks at those deep places because of crawfish.

“I usually find (deep bass) at the bottoms of creek channels that have rocks. I’ll find a likely-looking place and start casting the drop-shot rig, let it sink to the bottom, then jiggle it a while, then move it slowly back to me and jiggle it some more. Once I find fish and start catching them, I’ll get right above them and drop the (drop shot) down to them.”

Richardson’s drop-shot equipment includes 6½- to 7-foot Bass Pro or Shimano rods mated with Shimano Stradic or Chronarch reels. His terminal tackle includes 8-pound Berkley Trilene monofilament line with a 1-ounce bell sinker tied to the line’s end and a small hook tied about 18 inches above the weight with a small soft-plastic lizard or a “french fry” worm on the hook. He ties his drop-shot hook directly to his main line.

“Bone-chilling (is) the best time to use the drop shot because that’s when I almost always find some deep bass,” he said. “You can find bass shallow at Belews, especially in the afternoon after the sun has warmed up the shoreline, but with that type of fishing, you work a lot harder, making a lot of casts, and the fish will be scattered.

“I’d rather find a concentration of deep bass, work the drop-shot and catch a bunch of ’em at one place.”

However, the depths where bass concentrations at Belews Lake may change from day to day, Richardson said. Just because he caught bass 40 feet deep on a drop-shot rig one day doesn’t mean the same school of bass will hang around the same area the next day.

“Guys like me might be catching fish 40 feet deep, and somebody else might be catching them 10 feet deep at the same time, then we’d come back the next day and they’d be gone from both places,” he said. “However, I don’t think the bass left or scattered. They just went to a different depth, but somewhere nearby. It’s your job to find them.”

Richardson said environmental conditions also may affect where he finds bass at Belews in late winter and early spring.

Last February, Duke Energy pumped millions of gallons of water out of Belews Creek (a tributary of the Dan River) into the lake to raise the lake’s level, because it had dropped significantly the previous two years because of drought conditions, Richardson said. Duke didn’t want to take a chance on a third-straight year of little rainfall that would draw down the lake level too much.

“I think that’s what killed the deep bite I had yesterday and the day before,” Richardson said during one tough outing. “The water out of the river that Duke pumped in here was dingy. That meant is was heavier and sank to the bottom of the lake and forced fresh, cleaner water to the shoreline. And the baitfish and the bass followed that clearer water.”

To prove it, he changed tactics, tied on a white-chartreuse spinnerbait with three gold Colorado blades and caught several bass in eight to 10 feet of water.

“Timing and color of lures also are important this time of year,” he said. “I’ve fished tournaments here, caught nothing early, then had another guy come behind me and fish the same spot in the afternoon and wipe me out. I was just at the spot before the bass moved shallow.”

Correct color choices for soft-plastic lures also are crucial for catching Belews bass during March, he said.

“I like Edge lures and Zoom soft-plastics, especially black-grape worms,” Richardson said. “I think a lot of people throw junebug and red shad (plastics), but I like to throw something a little different.”

His worms’ blue tint matches the blue hue that crawfish wear this time of the year, a likely factor in producing more bites.

“I like a Zoom Critter Craw,” he said. “It’ll be the first bait I throw after I fish from 7 to 9 a.m. using a Shadrap or jerkbait.”

Richardson said he knows bass anglers fish more popular hot-water lakes such as Hyco, but he won’t change.

“Belews is the best hot-water lake I’ve ever been to around here,” he said. “I think it’s better than any other in North Carolina for hot bass fishing in cold weather.”