Being a fan of deep-diving crankbaits, however, Wright roots for the water level to drop several feet after Memorial Day, when bass have normally recovered from their post-spawn blues and moved off the bank and toward deeper water to feed and replenish their energies. If the water is down, fish will move to little breaks and dropoffs, points and humps, and there is no real trouble finding or catching them, as long as you understand the kind of cover they like to use on that kind of offshore structure.

"At High Rock, you're not chasing baitfish because they're everywhere," Wright said. "You're fishing the cover. At High Rock, I'm only fishing for one fish on each piece of cover; I'm not hunting for a school. I'm looking for rocks and brush and stumps. You may be keying in on one kind of cover, maybe brush, but you don't pass up the chance to fish a rock or a stump."

Being a relatively shallow lake -- it also stays stained much of the year -- High Rock (15,900 acres) has a lot of nice little dropoffs and humps and points where fish may be holding 100 yards off the bank but still be in less than 10 feet of water. The magic depth, Wright says, is often between 9 and 12 feet deep. It's a rare bass at High Rock that is caught at more than 15 feet below the surface, in part because a majority of the good structure and cover is in that 10-foot range.

"An ideal situation for me in July is if the water is down 3 feet; you can catch fish out on those little breaks," said Wright, whose favorite crankbait is a Zoom Z3 in either chartreuse/ brown or white/brown. Because it dives down to 10 or 12 feet, "It's an ideal bait for High Rock when they're off the bank."

If he can't get a crankbait bite off a favorite stump, he'll turn to a huge, 10-inch Zoom Ole Monster worm, and he'll fish it Texas-rigged with a 1/2- to 3/4-ounce bullet weight.

If the water level is up and he thinks more fish will be shallow, he'll fish his big worm around boat docks and other kinds of shallow cover. He's partial to long sea walls.

"If the water is up, boat docks are where they're gonna be -- or around sea walls along the bank," he said. "I fish both the main lake and creeks, because you can't pinpoint where the fish are going to be. A certain creek can be real hot for a week or so, then it will change."

Cable's huge fish was caught in the spring, but it is the summer when he is most comfortable fishing Jordan or any of the other lakes around the Raleigh-Durham area. Like Wright, he is a deepwater expert, a lover of big-lipped diving plugs and structure fishing.

Jordan, he says, is the top lake for "traditional" summertime bass fishing in his part of the state. It has an abundance of the kinds of offshore structure and cover that attract bass when hot water forces them to live off the banks, from long, stumpy flats that drop off abruptly into winding creek channels, to long points, to humps and even submerged roadbeds.

"What makes Jordan better, I think, is as much what it doesn't have," said Cable (919/815-1185). "It doesn't have any grass, and it doesn't have too many schooling fish. The bass have to move out and live on that offshore structure because that's where the baitfish live during the summer."

Bass usually move off the bank and toward deep water around the first of June, and Cable will search for them in 8 to 10 feet of water. As the summer progresses and the water warms up even more, they move progressively deeper, but Cable rarely has to fish much deeper than 15 to 18 feet.