Years ago, you could have played "I've Got a Secret" with bass fishermen across North Carolina, and if your secret was Shearon Harris Lake near Sanford, you would have been fairly sure you'd wind up a winner.

Yep, it wasn't too terribly long ago, in the early 1990s, when a good bass fisherman from the Raleigh-Durham area wouldn't have even considered bypassing the tremendous fisheries at Falls of Neuse Lake and B. Everett Jordan Lake to spend a day on the little reservoir in southern Wake County hard by U.S. Route 1.

But like a moth coming out of its cocoon, Shearon Harris has become a dynamite fishery, arguably one of the best lakes in the Southeast for big largemouths. If it was three times as large as its 4,100 acres, it would be known everywhere.

With tremendous numbers of healthy bass cruising its grassy coves, its rocky points and winding creek channels, Harris is a wonder of a fishery. It produces great numbers and great big fish.

And April is prime time for catching some of both. With bass getting ready to spawn, they're likely to be moving toward the shallows on a handful of creeks that feed the Cape Fear River.

Phil Cable of Holly Springs, the guy who let the cat out of the bag when he and a partner brought in a sack of 10 bass that weighed almost 60 pounds in a tournament on Harris, said that any fisherman who doubts that the lake is one of North Carolina's best needs only to put the bow of his boat up against the bank in April, then scan the banks on either side of his trolling motor and start counting the number of fish cruising the sandy shallows or finning on spawning beds.

Cable doesn't tournament fish anymore, but he spends a lot of days every year guiding on Shearon Harris, He and Jeffrey Thomas, a bass pro from Broadway who also guides on Harris, can quote chapter-and-verse about the lake's largemouths -- and how great the fishing can be in the spring.

"There will be more bass on the bank in April at Harris than anywhere I've ever fished, even Florida," Thomas said. "When they move up, they all move up."

And following that move is what makes for great fishing, the two fishermen agree. The peak of the spawn is likely to hit from the second week of April to the end of the month, depending on when the full or new moons hit and how quickly the water has warmed into the 60s.

"Harris is one lake where you can always find some fish (offshore), but they'll be moving in April," Cable said (919-762-9697). "There used to be a real good crankbait bite in April, but not as much anymore. There will still be some crankbait fish in the 8- to 10-foot range, but now it's a great Senko bite right on the bank.

"There are plenty of fish in that lake, and most of the fish you'll catch in April will be from that 8-foot range right up to zero -- on the bank."