Bass bite still alive at Harris

It’s summertime and the livin’ isn’t particularly easy for bass anglers at two of the Triangle area’s major lakes — Jordan and Falls of the Neuse.

So to veteran guide Phil Cable of Holly Springs (Phil Cable’s Guide Service (919-762-9697, 919-815-1185) that just means he makes his base of operations Shearon Harris Lake.

The 4100-acre Progress Energy lake south of Jordan Lake and a few long casts from Raleigh is unique among Tar Heel impoundments. It’s similar to a Florida lake that has a good number of Florida-strain lunkers and is productive January through December. No other Triangle — or North Carolina impoundment of its size — is similarly ringed with “grass” (hydrilla, elodea, primrose). For that reason, Harris almost never turns off as a bass anglers’ playground. Fishermen can put in boats nearly any time and find an active pattern and the possibility of catching a “hawg” of 8 pounds or more.

“You can do a little of everything here,” Cable said. “I like to fish deep, as everybody knows, but sometimes the deep bite using a Texas-rigged big plastic worm isn’t working. So you usually can try the edges of the grass that line the lake and work a spinnerbait or a shallow-diving crankbait and get some action. You can throw (a lure) into the grass mats, too, a frog or rat imitator, and use heavy-duty line to have some fun.”

Before he gives up the deep bite, Cable said he might play with a Little George or a big football-shaped jig and pig.

“I like to hop a Little George (off the bottom),” Cable said. “Sometimes that works good. The best thing about finding fish deep versus getting a shallow bite is you may hit on a concentration of deep fish and catch several at the same spot. Shallow bass usually are scattered in summer.”

One problem that may hurt, Cable said, is there are a couple of guides working Harris now who use live bait to land bass and allow clients to keep them, instead of the usual catch-and-release technique favored by guides.

“I don’t mind (live-bait fishing),” Cable said. “What I do mind is you see people putting three or four coolers in those boats. I know people need cold drinks when it’s hot, but you got to figure something else is going into those coolers besides Pepsis and Mountain Dews.”

Anglers who want to fish with him had better be ready for early morning trips on weekends.

Cable, who has returned to work for a heating-and-air-conditioning service company, works Monday through Friday now and only has weekends to fish.

“The pleasure boaters fill up the (two) ramps at Harris on Saturdays and Sundays, so I try to leave (the dock) at daybreak, then I try to be off the lake by 10 a.m.,” he said. “To fish effectively for bass on weekends, you need to be there early before all the ski boats and other boaters get out there.”