But most of the time, they aren’t, and that’s when the float ‘n’ fly -- popularized by fishermen in East Tennessee -- really steps up to the plate.

“It works; it really works,” Correll said. “It’s popular in East Tennessee, but quite a few fishermen in western North Carolina are catching smallmouths with it.”

The rig starts with a 12-foot, medium-light-action spinning rod, and a spinning reel spooled with 4-pound-test fluorocarbon line. About 8 to 12 feet above the end of the line, Correll takes a simple bobber -- the plain, round plastic float that has contributed to the death of millions of bream -- pushes down the tiny metal clasp on the bottom of the float, twists his line around it three or four times, then inserts it back in the bottom of the float.

“That keeps the float from sliding up and down the line,” Correll explained.

Next, he ties on a tiny hair jig, or a “fly” in East Tennessee fishing lingo. The leadhead is anywhere from 1/16 of an ounce to 1/32 to 1/64. Correll’s favorite is a “Punisher” jig, which is a tiny leadhead with a big puff of “craft hair” tied in instead of bucktail. The originator of the jig, Correll said, stumbled onto the idea of using craft hair -- best known for providing the Don King-like hairdos on “troll” dolls popular in the 1960s and 1970s. It was a great idea, Correll said.

“The craft hair is great. It’s translucent, so it gives off different colors under the water when the sun hits it, although marabou will do real well, too, because it will shake and shimmy a lot,” he said. “The jig is tiny, but the hair is probably an inch to 2 1/2 inches long.

“You need the long rod so you can make a decent cast, because you’re casting with 8 or 10 feet of line hanging down below the float, and that’s hard to cast.”

Once Correll’s semi-shot put cast comes to rest a good distance from the boat, it’s just a matter of letting it sit and very slowly retrieving it.

“You bring it back very, very slowly,” he said. “In fact, you let the action of the waves on the water do it all for you. We usually have a little wind during the winter; the wind will put a little chop on the water, and the wave action will wiggle the float around and make that jig dance down there.”

And smallmouth bass are apparently attracted to the boogie fever that the jig creates. “I’ve caught fish 8 to 12 feet deep over 70 and 80 feet of water,” he said. “The shad might be suspended 20 or 30 feet deep, but the smallmouths will move 20 or 30 feet to hit that jig; they’ll go a great distance to eat it.”

Correll prefers shad or crawfish colors on the jig, with brown/orange and brown/chartreuse combinations being his favorites.

Phil Cable fishes two basic lures for much of the winter at Shearon Harris Lake: a jerkbait and a jigging spoon.