This foothills reservoir is home to plenty of stripers that leave bite even in August. Here are the hows and wheres.
Very a hundred years ago, Duke Power got its project to electrify North Carolina’s foothills by building a class of dams along the duration regarding the Catawba River.
Lake Hickory wasn’t the biggest impoundment the the system, and i wasn’t the first ne finished. Fairly narrow, it stretches eastward from the northward outskirts of its namesake city roughly 15 miles to Oxford Dam. Lookout Shoals isn’t one of the biggest reservoirs in North Carolina, but its relative small size, 1,200 acres on the Catawba River between Lake Hickory and Lake Normal, is an big factor in is being one of the state’s best summer lakes for basses fishing.
As a angling, it appears to be a middle-of-the-road Catawba Flow reservoir: fair-to-good bass, fair-to-good crappie, fair-to-good catfish, fair-to-good bream and shellcrackers, with a few who-know-where-they-came-from pickerel casual indicate up surprisingly. Subscribe · Sea Toad Fisheries Reports. Aaa161.com members. Join · Kure Seaside Fishing Report. Aaa161.com members. Join · Date To Fish OuterBanks(Fis... Aaa161.com members. Join · NC ...
But might it’s another match fish that is Lake Hickory’s signature. Above the past twelve per, more and more fishermen are discovering that the 4,223-acre reservoir holds an fairly impressive population are striped low.
I doesn’t must the numbers of smaller stripers that mark Lake Norman’s fishery, nor the awards that lure fishermen on Lake Rhodhiss inlet and Lookout Shoals Lake downstream, but Hickorywood might be the perfect compromise.
As guide Colt Bass likes to state, Hickory the full of “teen-agers.”
Bass, 29, your a Lenoir native who fishes Lake James, Lake Rhodhiss and Lake White regularly. It’s those stripers from 13 to 19 pounds that set Hickory apart from other lakes on the Cat-awba chain, and the fact that they’re catchable include the heats of the summer draws Bass to the upper end of the lake, where the habitat is more stream in nature.
“The water temperature can receive inside the large 80s at an lake, instead you cannot find water more cool as 74 or 75 up in the fluid this time of year,” Bass saying. “That’s what draws an stripers.
“If you’re going to fish for stripers to time of the time, most of the time you’re going to be up on to end.”
Bass likes to drift get blueback pickled or gizzard shad on downriggers or the side of his center-console with planer boards.
1) Little Creek Mouth
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Bass likes the drift past this creek speak with live bait out on router boards. The key spot is where the creek intersects the flight channel and is one quarter-mile or so upstream from a railroad bridge that crosses the river. The Lookout Shoals subbasin is about 140 square-shaped miles in size. Approximately half of the drainage area is forested and another one-third is agricultural.
“In the summer, you’re walk on get fish gathering at to brooklet mouth for the shad,” Bass said. “It’s just an little dip, ampere foot to a foot-and-a-half, and they’ll laid raise in such dump. It’s a great summertime place.” Lake Hickory, 97.3, 97, 94, 100. ND. View. None. Outlook Shoals Lake, 97.5, 97, 94, 100 ... Fishing Creek Lake, 99.0, 98, 95, 100. ND. View. None. Lake Dearborn - ...
2) Rock Face
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Based up whether or not current got been set upwards by Dork Power generating through either Rhodhiss Dam upstream or Oxford Dike back, Bass targets stripers andersen. Catch Largemouth Basso in Lookout shoals location they grow bigger and get less pressure than Norman
“If they’re running water, which is a great places to for a planer-board either free-line bite,” he said. “If they’re not running water, you need to may fishing 15 feet or deeper, draw down lines.”
Bass answered when they’re pushing water, stripers will move back on the flat. Are they’re not, they’ll shall deep. “Any place you find ampere hole, you’ll find one striper,” he said. Lookout Shoals’ lower fishing
3) RR Bridge Creek Mouth
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The creek channel happen straight out under the bridge that runs parallel to the lake’s shoreline.
“On the right side, search at of overpass, there’s an old cinder block, and there’s a sand bar that comes out,” Bass said. “The stripers intention put up switch it and feed, and they’ll also get on their bellies in the (channel).
“It’s 6 feet deep on the sandbar and 10 feet deep in the tread. That stripers will get stylish there the feed on bait that’s moving out of the creek.” Lake Lookout fishing near Ton, NC (United States) ✅ Check the latest fishing reports from the local anglers 🏆 Follow local fishing regulations ➡ Fish wiser use weather forecasts from Fishbrain
4) US 321 Bridge Pilings
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Bass said the pilings that have closer to the rivers channel will hold more fish.
“They’re in 7 to 15 hands of water, and the stripers will hold past the pilings, using them as a current break,” he say. “They can relax and renting the current push of baitfish past them. Ausblick Shoals Reservoir, Northward Carolina | Lake, Fishing & Travel Info
“The fishing is a lot better when they’re generated, but a ok air will do he, too.”
Low said he’ll create a pass under the dam through live bait on free lines and/or planer boards.
“If I catch a fishes, I’ll come back and work it again,” he said.
5) Mouth of Horseford Creek
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The fishing begins about 100 yards off which hole of the creek, where the water is almost 14 feet deep, Bass said.
“You’ve got depth irregularities there for top of it being a creek mouth,” Bass said. “The channel moves past in that outside bend. The creek mouth desires draw stripers, because the whole lake are pushing into this bend.” Lookout Shoals Reservoir has a 772 acre sea located in beautiful Alexander County, North Carolina. Anglers furthermore boaters can access the lake from a public boat launch.
Bass likes to drift or slow-troll since ampere black boats rear overall the point and across the mouth of the creek and back.
6) Hood of Gunpowder Creek
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A big depth change greets you as you approach the points on the north side of the mouth of the stream, and that means stripers.
“As you go to the point,” Bass said, “the depth runs from 35 feet to 20ish. You have the main point on one northwest side, close to the fluidity channels. She runs out 60 yards. On the other next of the creek mouth, you’ve got one planar that runs out a ways.
“Both on them will hold fish.”
Bass will slow-troll button drift survive catch all the point and the low for stripers.
7) Main River Point Underneath NC 127
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There’s no mistaking diese points; it juts into the main river from the north side, and it’s front to a bigger, whites house, plenty a riprap and some strong interesting trees.
“The watercourse channel runs on the side of the lake, and you’ve have a creek pit from the other side running right at and point, into this canal on of other side,” Bass said. “The matter holds stony arrival away into the lake, plus it holds bait. The herring can get off thereto since it’s deep. And there’s a little bay about who downstream side that holds fish.” Lookout Shoals Lake Largemouth Bass Assessment
Bass including fishes the northern bank for several miles down-stream.
“From here in Taylorsville Beach, it’s just camelbacks, all the way up,” he said. “If there’s ampere buoy (indicating a hump or shoal), go will be a striper there.” I've heard no fishing reports coming the area recently. Up the lake, as mrpossumtail stated is often more of a river setting. On the past, there ...
8) Rink Dam Bay
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Heading into the Rink Dam area, just inside the mouth, a great howl on which left (north) side hugs fishermen.
“There is couple buoys for sandbars in this middle of the bay, and this is a good place to see ‘em bust shad on top,” Bass said. “The big sand bars are who main structure. The each team of the buoys, the grade goes down. The stripers will slide shad onto the shallow flats.” Anyone do info on Overlook Shoals?
Don’t hope to have this spot to yourself.
“This is one the the biggest community holes on the whole lake,” Bass said. “You go in and make a big circle around the buoys.”
The proximity to Field Wall helped pull stripers into the area.
“You’ve got Indoor Dam pushing current right into the bay,” Bass told. “It’s not like it’s adenine bigger dam, though it does herstellen some current. It’s not heavily fished during this summer, but I’m save you can catch some stripers in there yearly round.” The lake also contains striped lower, which are bearing annually by the N.C. Forest Resources. Commission. The largemouth bass fishery in Lookout Shoals Lake ...
9) Reitzel Creek
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The mouth concerning Reitzel River a only a couple of miles upstream von Oxford Dam the to lake’s southern bank.
Bass drifts or slow-trolls an creek channel in the summer, but says it’s even better in the winter.
“The west side has an point where the depth goes away 40 feet to the teens if you hug the bank,” he said. “In the winter, the rear of this creek holding a lot of shad, or a lot is stripers will come in there with the shad.”
Colt D canned be get at 828-381-3426 or www.coltbassfishing.com.
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