"Kerr Scott has been a stable fishery," said biologist Kinnon Hodges, whose territory includes much of northwestern North Carolina, the western Piedmont and the foothills. "We don't have any real data before we put the spots in. During the period we've sampled, from the mid-'80s, it doesn't appear that the spotted bass have any impact on largemouths. There are decent numbers of largemouths up to 21 to 23 inches, like most lakes. Relative to High Rock and Jordan and Falls of Neuse, it's not a very productive lake.

"About the spots, originally, there were two groups of fishermen. The bank beaters told you there were no spots in the lake bigger than 8 or 10 inches. In the late 1990s, when we started doing a different kind of sampling, we starting picking up some really big spots -- fish up to 18 inches. Before, we weren't seeing anything bigger than 12 inches."

About 2000, fishermen began to really notice the quality of spots -- especially if they fished deeper patterns or if they spent a lot of time on the lake between October and April. The commission, which had suspended a 12-inch size minimum on spotted bass, reinstated it.

Fishermen have found that, like many other relatively deep, clear reservoirs, W. Kerr Scott is a pretty good cold-weather lake. Bass tend to stack up on main-lake points and hit deep-diving crankbaits or big, single-bladed spinnerbaits that are slow-rolled, according to Donald Gilreath of Fairplanes, one of the lake's most-successful local fishermen. It's his opinion that spotted bass make up about half of the lake's black bass, and he says it's not unusual to catch five-fish limits that weigh between 12 and 15 pounds, with fish equally divided among largemouths and spotted bass -- not to mention an occasional smallmouth that drops down out of one of the larger tributaries or the Yadkin River.

The other big "sleeper" nowadays is the lake that was referred to as the "great dead sea" for so many years: Lake Norman.

According to guide Eric Weir of Gastonia, a lot of fishermen who were competing in tournaments around the Southeast decided on their own to bring back to Lake Norman some of the spotted bass they were catching in lakes in Alabama, Georgia and upstate South Carolina.

Biologists believe that spotted bass are taking advantage of blueback herring (alewives) that were imported to Lake Norman by striper fishermen looking to boost the forage base for their favorite quarry.

"The spotted bass are 14 or 15 inches long, on the average," said Weir, who caught the state-record spotted bass (6 pounds, 5 ounces) the day after Christmas 2003. "Last year and the year before, they were 12 and 13 inches long. Now, you're catching good, quality keepers. We caught some 3 1/2- and 4-pound fish -- they're getting to that size, and they haven't reached their full potential yet. What I think has happened is that we've got both strains of the spotted bass, Alabamas and Kentuckys, and they've crossed and gotten big."

Most of the spotted bass are in the lower end of the 32,500-acre reservoir -- the deeper, clearer end. They can be caught on a variety of lures -- spinnerbaits, crankbaits, Carolina- or split-shot-rigged plastics -- and they tend to be a little deeper and more often schooled up than largemouths.

"I would say Norman was better than Wylie (in 2004)," Weir said, "and I live on Wylie. We had great fishing last spring. The spots had a lot to do with it, but the largemouths were so much better. We had six stringers that were over 15 pounds, and that's unreal, great.

"You don't catch the big fish at Norman that you do at Wylie, but I'd rather take a guide trip to Norman anytime to teach somebody how to fish a jig or a spinnerbait or a small crankbait. You get so many more bites."