Fontana Reservoir is a great spot in the Mountain Region for numbers, as well as reasonably sized bass. Both largemouths and smallmouths inhabit this body of water. At just over 10,000 acres, this lake’s big enough to offer anglers almost any type of bass fishing they want.

Flooded at the very end of World War II, Fontana’s timber was cleared in most locations, and what remained is now mostly rotten or otherwise nonexistent. But that doesn’t mean there’s a lack of laydowns or stumps along its tributaries and inflows. In the spring and fall, largemouths migrate to them for shelter and food.

Local anglers target these areas with spinnerbaits and small crankbaits. Work them around and into any wood you can find. The fish won’t be giants here, but there’ll be plenty of fast action, enough to keep you from becoming bored.

During the summer and winter, try throwing jigs and Texas-rigged plastics around the old foundations that were flooded when the reservoir was impounded. It’ll take some work to find these places, but it’s well worth the effort. Fish live in them all year long.

The drought has hurt Fontana. Water levels are low and the fish are concentrated. It’s not likely to get better for months, even assuming above-normal rainfall -- and that’s a big assumption -- this winter.

That may, however, ultimately turn out to be a blessing. The forage base is holding up well. As a consequence, with less water to hunt, the bass are finding it unusually easy to feed. That may increase the average size of Fontana’s notoriously small largemouths.

Lake Rhodhiss, on the Catawba River chain, is another place that deserves a close look. At 3,000 surface acres, it’s considerably smaller than Fontana and doesn’t have as dense a population of largemouths, but Martin is optimistic about its future anyway.

“The water quality should stay good here regardless of the weather. The bass population is stable and there’s plenty for them to eat,” he said. “Unless something drastic happens with the drought, I think it’ll be good in 2008.”

In fact, the prospects are so bright for Rhodhiss that Martin considers it to be one of the fastest-growing big-bass lakes in his region. “It’s got everything it needs to produce big fish. I can see some really big fish coming out of Rhodhiss in the next few years. I’m very optimistic about the future of this fishery.”

No discussion of the Mountain Region would be complete without a mention of Chatuge Lake. This North Carolina-Georgia border impoundment has been entertaining anglers for years with respectable, if not spectacular, largemouth bass fishing. That trend shows no signs of slowing down.

“Chatuge is better than a lot of anglers think it is. The spots overshadow the largemouths, but the truth is that the largemouth fishing is pretty good on Chatuge. In fact, it’s probably the place to go in the Mountain Region if you’re looking for numbers of largemouths. They won’t be real big, though. The competition with the spots for food holds their size down,” he said.

The best time to fish Chatuge is in the spring and fall. Gently sloping shorelines, plenty of brush, massive laydowns and tons of artificial attractors combine to pull the bass shallow and make them accessible to spinnerbaits, crankbaits and topwater plugs.

THE COASTAL PLAINS REGION
Public-water bass fishing in the Coastal Plains Region is, with one exception, river fishing.

“We’re still recovering from the effects of Hurricane Isabelle. It’s getting better every year, but the damage was done and we’re still feeling it,” said Jeremy McCargo, assistant fisheries biologist with the NCWRC. “The good thing is we haven’t had any problems since then, though. If the weather holds (the drought has had little effect on the rivers), we should be back to normal in a couple of years.”

McCargo specifically recommends the Roanoke and Chowan rivers as the hotspots on the coast. He reports that both rivers have shown excellent recovery from Isabelle and that bass stocks are rebuilding and getting better every year.

“The past couple of years have been especially good. The drought has had very little effect on the rivers. It hasn’t dropped water levels here like in the reservoirs and lakes