Riverine lakes present challenges, rewards, for spring bass anglers
One of the factors that novice bass anglers fail to take into account when they load the boat up and head out for a day of bass fishing is what classification is the body of water they are headed to. Is it a highland lake, full of deep valleys and sloping tributaries? Is it a lowland impoundment, more like a flooded swamp with jumbled configurations that lead from one side to the other?
One lake type that many anglers fail to consider is a riverine lake. Most Carolina impoundments started out as a riverine system, with one or two main systems, that was inundated with water when the dam was constructed. Some of these lakes expanded well beyond the banks of their original rivers and became sprawling impoundments with miles of water to cross from one side to the other. Others maintain the characteristics of their original river systems, and even at full pond are more like swollen rivers without as much flow.
Lake Greenwood in the central Piedmont section of South Carolina is a good example of one of these riverine impoundments. The lake is not large by man-made impoundment standards, somewhere around 11,000 acres. It’s fed primarily by the Saluda River and secondarily by the Reedy River. It’s a long, snaky looking body of water when viewed from the air. And it houses a better-than-average (some would even call excellent) largemouth bass fishery.
Watch the weather
One of these anglers who would claim its greatness is Woodruff, SC native and fervent bass tournament angler Chase Stewart. Stewart has been fishing Greenwood for almost as long as he can remember. He’s won more than his share of tournament prize money from bass fishing tournaments on the lake, and the other anglers regard him as a considerable opponent on tournament day.
Stewart has spent countless hours on the lake and understands its many phases. The lake is operated on a water level rule curve that gradually decreases the lake from it’s normal 440 msl level beginning in November, to a winter pool of 434.5 msl. It begins returning the lake to full pool in January, with a complete cycle achieved by late March.
Stewart said you can predict a lot about the spring bass fishing potential of the lake by the timing of weather phenomena during the drawdown.
“Two things we can usually count on during the winter drawdown are cold temperatures and rain,” said Stewart. “If we have a lot of wet weather during the winter, it makes for a later spring on the lake.
Other factors include the timing of heavy rains, which will temporarily refill the lake and make it muddy, and the extreme cold temperatures that drop the water temperatures into the 40s and below.
“If we get the cold temperatures before we get the rain and the dirty water, it will push the bass out deeper. And they tend to stay out in the deeper water longer into the spring,” he said. “On the other hand, if we get the dirty water, which will always draw the fish into shallower water, before we get the cold temperatures, then the bass tend to stay shallow. That means we get an earlier spring bite, and more fish in shallow, during the bream bedding season. And they remain on shallow brushpiles into the summer.”
When rain and cold temperatures both arrive at about the same time, Stewart said that leads to a phenomenal spring bank bite.
“We’ll have a big first wave of spawning fish, and a big wave of the bream-bed fish, and a big wave of summer brushpile fish, because I expect the bigger fish will all move at about the same time,” he said.
Photoperiod is the key
As for the timing of the spawn itself, Stewart believes weather is an influencing factor to when the bass feel the urge to move in. But that is secondary to the lengthening daylight, which is often referred to as photoperiod.
He compares the bass spawn to rutting whitetail deer. Everyone is so focused on the weather to determine the rut. But historically speaking, it’s the lengthening amount of daylight for bass, and decreasing daylight for deer, that sets off the instinctual reactions for them to do their thing.
But, if you still have to put a date on it, Stewart said you can expect the shallows to begin being invaded by bass with spawning on their minds around March 1.
Regardless of the timing, Stewart is looking for almost identical areas whether the water color has cleared back up, or if subsequent rainfall has kept the water stained or even muddy. He likes sunny flat pockets, or even just long runs of bank with decent bottom composure with plenty of exposure to the southern sky.
“Water temperature is not as important as photoperiod. But when the time comes, bass will search out the warmer water to get the egg production moving and increase their metabolism,” he said.
Lure selection
Once he’s identified a stretch of hard structure bottom, which can mean anything from sand, clay, rock, pea gravel, rip rap or even just hard bottom around dock pilings, Stewart breaks out one of two primary search baits to gauge where the bass are in their spawning cycle.
“If I can see the bottom in the shallows, I’ll use a swimbait to throw out there and see how they react to it. It doesn’t have to be some high dollar plastic, but just a 4- or 5-inch swimbait to work along those areas,” he said. “If I can’t see the bottom, then a spinnerbait or, most likely, a Chatterbait will be tied on the line.”
An important fact to bear in mind is that during March, bass activity is rarely static. Fish are typically in transition from one stage of pre-spawn to the next, and eventually spawning. While Stewart is gauging bass activity, and putting good fish in the livewell for the tournament weigh-in, he wants to know if the fish are relating to a specific spot on the bottom, if they are scouting out a general area, or if they’re just up on a specific bank to get warm.
“I’m a sucker for sight fishing once the bass have picked out a bed,” said Stewart. “Here on Greenwood, that usually starts on average around the second to third week in March. I’ll start to see stationary fish, and I’ll throw the search bait out to get the fish’s reaction. If it’s time to start working the beds, then that’s a whole different scenario as far as fishing. But now I know where to look.”
Spotted bass vs. largemouth on Greenwood
For veteran tournament bass angler Chase Stewart, winning a bass fishing tournament on Lake Greenwood is about catching five of the best largemouth bass he can catch. He’s not opposed to spotted bass, which started showing up in Greenwood several years ago. But the sizes of the spots aren’t going to compare in March to the size of largemouth bass he’s hoping to catch.
“The only time I consider fishing for spotted bass in a tournament on Greenwood is first thing on a cold morning,” said Stewart. “Spotted bass spawn deeper and later than largemouths, and they tend to be smaller. But on cold mornings, largemouth often need some sunshine to get them started. And that leaves an hour or so I can try to catch a spotted bass.”
In this scenario, he’ll target isolated pockets of rocky bottom from 10 to 20 feet deep with shakyhead jigs or other standard spotted bass favorites. On occasion, Greenwood produces good sized spotted bass. But if he catches one, he considers it a bonus and will resume largemouth bass fishing as soon as possible.
“I don’t believe the influx of spotted bass in this lake has reduced the number of largemouth that live here,” he said. “Those fish are changing the habits of largemouth bass, and it’s the anglers who are trying to catch largemouth bass in the old patterns that are now dominated by spotted bass, that believe the largemouth are going away.”
Stewart said the fishing patterns have simply changed. And in order to keep up, bass anglers need to adapt and figure out where the larger, and somewhat lazier, largemouth bass have moved in order to continue catching them.
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