Try Hyco, Mayo for winter bass, crappie

Besting the weather right now is a fishing key with most of North Carolina recovering from a blanket of Christmas Day snow. But for anglers who don’t mind cold-weather action, no better places exist than Mayo and Hyco lakes in Person County.

Crappie fishing is excellent at Mayo while Hyco, a Progress Energy steam plant lake with a hot-water discharge, is smoking for largemouth bass.

“Right now the hot thing at Mayo is crappie,” said Kennon Brown, a local guide who lives at Mayo. “They’re in 18 to 20 feet off water off the main creek channels.

“The best place to go is the ‘community hole’ off N.C. 49 — if the water temperature isn’t too cold.”

The key right now is finding a slight bit of moving water and making sure lures or baits are above schooling fish because crappie always feed toward the surface, not down.

“Best crappie lures will be a 1/16-ounce jig tipped with the live minnow,” said Brown (Hawg Hunter Guide Service, 336.599.6054). “You need to remember that with the water this cold (upper 30s to mid 40s), slow isn’t slow enough. Fish will be lethargic, and you want to move your jig and minnow slow.

“The bites will be slow, too, not like spring or summer where they slam baits. When one hits, it’ll feel like you’ve got a little weight on your line being pulled down.”

At Hyco, where the water temps are in the 50s because of the discharge from the steam plant, Brown likes to cast “the old Dieter Stanford wobbling crankbaits” that run 10- to 14-feet deep or he’ll use jerkbaits.

“Sour apple color or something bright is good (for crankbaits), but you also need to consider twitch baits because of the cold water,” Brown said.

Good suspending lure colors include clown or firetiger in stained water and white if the water’s clear.

“If we have any warming water, and it’s supposed to reach 60 degrees this weekend, fish are going to move,” Brown said. “And they they’ll be on rocky and clay banks or some banks with wood. In other words, you need to fish the northwest banks and forget going early and late.”

Prime times will be 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on sunny days.