Their biggest bass wasn’t big enough to take big-fish honors. Dale Lewis and Dusty Taylor, both of Thomasville, captured the award with a 9.33-pound bass, a trophy fish for High Rock.

Edwards said High Rock has also come back economically.

“When the drought shut the lake down, I lost all of my guide business,” he said. “But my business has been steadily growing the past two years. Fishermen are coming back to High Rock.”

In April at High Rock, anglers must determine whether the fish are in the pre-spawn or spawning mode.

During the first part of the month, the fish prepare to migrate into the shallows to spawn; from mid-April and into May, the fish are spawning.

Since weather conditions can hasten or delay the spawn, the most reliable determinant is water temperature. Once it reaches the lower 60s, the fish will start to bed.

Prior to that, pre-spawn bass will stage in 2 to 6 feet of water on gravel points near creek mouths and on rocky corners within the creeks. The fish prefer hard bottoms to mucky ones.

“One way of knowing if you’re fishing a hard bottom is to look for pine trees along the bank,” said Lexington’s Charlie Kingen, who guides for Edwards. “Pine trees grow on hard bottoms.”

For pre-spawn bass in clear water, Kingen fishes jigs, Texas-rigged crawdad plastics and what he calls “ink pen plastics” (straight, thick-bodied soft baits). In dingy water, he opts for spinnerbaits and lipless crankbaits.

Edwards adds small crankbaits to his arsenal under clear-water conditions.

A slow bite indicates the fish have moved into the creeks to spawn.

Once the fish begin spawning, they can be found in the backs and pockets of creeks. Noted spawning areas are Bucks Branch in Flat Swamp and the backwaters in Second Creek.

Under high-water conditions, spawning fish linger beneath buttonwood bushes and at the base of trees where they’re taken by pitching jigs and plastic lizards or by swimming floating worms through the shrubbery. Jigs in black/blue combinations and plastics in green pumpkin, red shad or plum are productive colors.

Chartreuse-skirted spinnerbaits prevail in muddy water.

Under low-water conditions, the fish hold in the front of piers or near stumps where they’re susceptible to small crankbaits, jigs and Texas-rigged plastics. Piers abound in Abbotts, Second and Swearing creeks.

“Some of my best catches during the spawning season have come around piers once the water dropped,” Edwards said.

High Rock is often stained, so sight-fishing is limited, yet Lexington’s Chris Baldwin has had success with this technique.

Baldwin fishes for bass not as yet locked onto their nests, a situation that occurs when the water temperature ranges from 58 to 60 degrees.

He starts with a floating worm. He fishes the floating worms as if a fish that doesn’t strike the bait on the initial cast isn’t going to hit it at all. Thereafter, however, he uses a jig or tube bait, and when he switches to these he will repeatedly sweep the bait under the fish. Eventually, the fish may strike.

Edwards employs the same sweeping technique to aggravate bedding bass into striking, favoring a black jig, but he’d rather catch fish another way.

“I hate sight-fishing at High Rock because the water color can change overnight,” he said.

Baldwin also recognizes the shortcomings of sight-fishing.

“Few tournaments are won by sight-fishing at High Rock,” he said.

“There’s not enough clear water, and what clear water there is, gets worked over by too many fishermen.”

Only scattered stubble remains of the vegetation that grew during the drought.

The stubble snarls crankbaits, so more bass than usual have been taken on spinnerbaits, jigs and plastics the past two springs.