Deep catfish, stripers create hot High Rock bite

With summer’s heat blanketing North Carolina, freshwater anglers are turning to deep water fishing, and no place is better than High Rock Lake near Lexington.

“The channel catfish — and they’re big ones — are eating up jack right now at High Rock,” said Maynard Edwards of Yadkin Lakes Guide Service and Extreme Fishing Concepts (336-247-1287).

“A former (high school) student called me the other day and said he was going catfishing at High Rock and asked me to tell him some good places to go,” Edwards said. “I put him on some main river humps. He went by himself and put out six rods and twice he had all six rods go off at the same time. He caught 32 channel cats that day, some up to 12 pounds, which is huge. Eleven of those channel cats weighed in double digits. He fished from daylight to 10:30 a.m.”

Edwards said many High Rock anglers are using his Extreme catfish rig, basically a Santee rig with a different snag-less weight. He uses a 6-inch-long piece of coat-hanger wire (instead of a parachute weight) with a 15-degree bend in it and a loop at the bottom where he hammers a cast net weight of 1- to 1 1/2 ounces. Edwards runs his main line through a loop at the top of the coat-hanger wire, adds a bead, a swivel, ties on a couple of feet of 30-pound test leader, adds a 2 to 2 1/2-inch long crappie float 8 to 10 inches from the end then adds a No. 4 to No. 6 Kahle or circle hook. He baits with live bream or cut shad.

“The channel cats hit the cut bait while flatheads hit live baits, most often live bream you catch with a rod and reel,” he said. “We always pull a couple of lines behind the boat, baited with bream, for flatheads.”

Flatheads up to 50 pounds are possible.

“This rig also catches stripers,” Edwards said. “It prevents hangups probably 60 percent better than using a Carolina rig. If you do get snagged, all you have to do is take the rod out of the holder, shake it, and it’ll come loose.”

Edwards “strolls” (slow trolls) across humps and points until he gets some bites, then runs parallel down the length of the humps at the same depths where he found fish.

“July and August also are when stripers turn into bottom feeders because white perch start schooling,” he said. “The stripers come in to eat them and go underneath the schools of perch. You can catch them on catfish rigs.”

With the water temperature so hot, Edwards said catfish and stripers are likely to be from 12- to 24-feet deep.

“Most of the stripers will be 5, 6 or 7 pounds, but you always have the chance of catching one in double digits,” Edwards said. “You’re also likely to pick up a (largemouth) bass or two.”