Olive chooses blue/black jig combinations for stained water, brown/ green combinations for clear water.

For Cable and Dinterman, this pattern does not involve sight-fishing.

Usually when it rains and the water is high, the lakes are too stained for sight-fishing, Dinterman said. As a rule, Falls and Jordan are not good sight-fishing lakes because of their stained water.

Of the two, Dinterman said Falls is the better sight-fishing lake, but even it has only a narrow window of opportunity for that type of fishing. It occurs with the reverse of the conditions that create the high water bush pattern.

"Sight-fishing takes place at Falls when the lake is low and clear from a lack of rain," Dinterman said. "Most of the sight-fishing takes place in May from the Highway 98 bridge to the dam where the water is usually clear."

Cable's rather frank about his approach to sight-fishing.

"I'm not very good at it; I don't have the patience for it, so I don't do it," he said. "I lack the temperament it requires to make repeated casts to trigger spawning fish to bite."

Instead, the veteran guide prefers to target fish that are not spawning.

"I try for more aggressive feeding fish that will be around treelaps and rock," he said.

Conversely, Olive said he occasionally sight-fishes given clearwater conditions, though he admits that Jordan is a "tough lake" for sight-fishing and that sight-fishing requires seeking out the clearer water found in the Haw River area to the dam near Poe's Ridge.

Wood Pattern
Standing timber, stumps and treelaps in shallow water hold some of the more aggressive bass in April.

One of Olive's favorite strategies is wacky-worm fishing with a Senko whereupon the hook is inserted into the middle of the plastic causing the plastic to fall erratically. Olive drops the wacky worm near stumps and standing timber and lets it fall slowly, a tactic that provokes strikes from bass.