Photo by Ron Sinfelt

Imagine a town with a seemingly endless number of lakes dotting the landscape, with each lake forming its own unique habitat. Herons, egrets, ospreys and other fishing birds line the shorelines. Alligators, turtles and water snakes peer from their basking places among the lily pads. Some of the lakes are not much more than puddles and fractions of an acre in size. One is relatively big, encompassing 275 acres in surface area and offering many miles of fish-holding shoreline.

Some shorelines are pristine, while one lake in particular has docks with boats resting against them waiting for their captains to take them on fishing excursions. Some are so shallow an angler can wade across them. The biggest has water depths that drop as far as 35 feet.

Amazingly, there is such a town in North Carolina: the town of Boiling Spring Lakes. Its 53 lakes are largely the result of natural forces. Limestone underlies the sandy surface soils. Caverns in the bedrock allowed sinkholes to form that robbed the surface of sand and soil in a similar fashion to the way an hourglass flows sand through its waist. The natural water table of the surrounding pine ridges and wetlands filled the sinkholes with water over eons of time. But humans have lent a helping hand at creating this fishing paradise as well.

Boiling Spring Lakes is named for a large, flowing spring that bubbles forth its water just downstream of Alton Lennon Drive, which crosses the Sanford Dam and impounds the waters of Big Lake. Located at one end of the dam is a boating access area that was built and is maintained by the town. It has generous parking, an excellent boat ramp and a dock where fishing is allowed as well.

"The dam had some leaks caused by holes in the underlying limestone about four years ago," said Boiling Spring Lakes Public Works Director Larry Moudlin. "The lake was drawn down and the leaks were plugged by using geotechnical fabric and pipe clay."

An earlier repair in an attempt to solve the same problem was made around 20 years ago by the pumping of concrete under pressure to fill the underground caverns that had drained the lake. A dam failure would have jeopardized a railroad link to Sunny Point Military Ocean Terminal, so repairing the dam and keeping it sound is a top priority for the town and the military. This time, the repairs to the dam seem to be holding up well, with no noticeable seepage.

"We restocked the three main lakes with fish three years ago," Moudlin said. "The lakes have crappie, some huge catfish, bream, chain pickerel and lots of largemouth bass."

Indeed, the bass fishing has been excellent for "keeper"-sized fish in the past year. However, that could improve dramatically this spring, when many of the stocked largemouth bass reach sizes of 2 to 4 pounds and fish have time to spawn more fish that will be moving up into the keeper-sized ranges. The black bass limit in the lakes is the standard limit, with five fish allowed in the creel with two fish allowed to be less than 14 inches, while the remainder must be greater than 14 inches in length.

The most popular fishing lakes in Boiling Springs Lakes are also the largest. Upstream of 275-acre Big Lake are Middle Lake at approximately 10 acres in size, West Lake at approximately 10 acres in size and North Lake, which is about 7 acres in size. West Lake and Middle Lake are accessible from Dam Road. North Lake is accessible from East Lakeview Drive. Another popular lake upstream of Big Lake is Pine Lake, at about 6 acres. Pine Lake is accessible from East Boiling Spring Road.