Lake Hickory is one of North Carolina's best "smallish" reservoirs. At 5,200 acres, it stretches close to 17 miles from Oxford Dam at the Route 16 bridge north of Conover to Rhodhiss Dam just west of the Burke-Catawba county line.

Like Rhodhiss, Hickory is also a very fertile reservoir. It has excellent populations of largemouth bass, striped bass, crappie and channel catfish. Night-fishing for bass and crappie can be excellent throughout the summer, especially around the deep ends of piers and boat docks in 10 to 15 feet of water.

Summertime fishing for catfish and striped bass can also be excellent. Lake Hickory's stripers migrate a lot; their spring spawning run to the tailrace below Rhodhiss Dam will usually be over by Memorial Day, and the fish will make their way back down the lake as summer approaches. However, they usually make a move back up into the upper sections of the lake in August when Duke Power receives great demands on its hydroelectric plants and runs a lot of cool water off the bottom of Lake Rhodhiss into Lake Hickory. That attracts stripers to areas from Gunpowder Creek upstream to the Route 127 bridge and beyond.

Channel cats can be "easy" at Hickory for fishermen who set up on main-lake pockets and fish around laydown trees with baits, such as chicken livers, night crawlers and mussels. Better fish are often found on the deep ends of flats where they drop off into creek channels.

For guided trips, contact Jeff Tomlin at (704) 902-7246 or Ken Dalton at (828) 325-9848.

Lookout Shoals Lake is about 15 miles east of Hickory. At 1,200 acres and nine miles long, it is among the smallest reservoirs on the Catawba, but it produces bragging-sized striped bass and shellcrackers (redear sunfish) for bank-fishermen close to the Route 16 bridge, even during the summer.

Early June can be an excellent time to cast bucktails or live bait into the fast current below the turbines on the south bank, upstream from the Route 16 bridge to Oxford Dam. And when Duke Power isn't running water through the turbines, the shallow riverbed is full of big shellcrackers, as well as channel catfish. The state-record shellcracker weighed almost 4 1/2 pounds and was caught in the upper end of Lookout Shoals.

The shellcrackers thrive in Lookout Shoals because of high densities of freshwater mussels that collect on the rocky floor of the river. Fish typically spawn early in the summer; they can be caught on small in-line spinners, such as Roostertails or Panther Martins, on live worms or on mussels. As long as the current is calm, a small johnboat, canoe or inflatable can be invaluable for getting around.

For lodging and other opportunities in the Hickory area, contact the Catawba County Chamber of Commerce at (828) 328-6000.

As far as mountain trout fishing is concerned, South Mountains State Park is about 15 minutes southwest of Morganton off Route 64. It features three main mountain-trout streams in its 23,000 acres: Jacob's Fork, Shinny Creek and Henry's Fork.

Jacobs Fork is managed for wild trout in its upper reaches and delayed harvest on its lower reaches. From the first Saturday in June through September, the delayed-harvest section is managed under hatchery-supported regulations, meaning that any type of bait is legal and fishermen can keep up to seven trout per day.

"Catch rates in our delayed-harvest streams are probably double the hatchery-supported streams," said biologist Doug Besler of the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. "In places like state parks, people like to come and harvest fish, and we give them the opportunity to catch and keep some fish if they want to during certain seasons, and that also takes some pressure off the wild-trout streams."

Shinny Creek is managed for wild trout, and Henry's Fork is managed inside the park as a special catch-and-release-only, single-hook, artificial lures-only stream inside the park. It is a wild-trout stream on the South Mountain game lands portion and a hatchery-supported stream below the game lands boundary.