"Some of the channel drops go all the way down to 30 feet, but most of them are from 10 to 15 feet; it will drop from 10 on the end of the flat to 15 in the channel. A lot of that depends on how far back you are in the creeks. And the mouth of coves can be out of sight."

As the day progresses, Brown stops focusing on the topwater bite -- unless it stays overcast all day -- and goes back to the same areas with a Carolina rig, since most fish will be holding along the bottom.

"I will drop down to a Carolina rig and run it right along the edge of the channel and grass, paralleling it again," he said. "You want to work it off the edge of the drop a little bit. There are two plastics that I like to use: a green pumpkin or watermelon seed Zoom lizard, and a 7-inch hand-poured worm from Live Line Baits in Washington. I like black with blue fleck; it really shows up good in that clear water. The only problem is, it's so soft, you'll only catch one or two fish on a worm before you have to change.

"Mayo is not a big lake; it's got a lot of main-lake pockets and some small tributary creeks. All you've got to do is find the edge of the grass; that's the best pattern on the whole lake in the fall. And if you get a cloudy day, the topwater action can be good all day."

LAKE RHODHISS
Jerry Neeley, a long-time guide from Bessemer City, said he's almost surprised when he sees more than two or three boat trailers in the parking lot at Lake Rhodhiss, a 3,060-acre reservoir on the upper Catawba River near Morganton.

"There's nothing wrong with this lake, other than it's a little smaller," Neeley said (704-629-9288). "It's sort of an in-between lake (in between Lake James and Lake Hickory), and fishermen just don't seem to go there that much.

"The quality of the fishing is fabulous. You can catch a real nice stringer of bass just about every time you go. You can go up there and catch bass anytime, even in the dead of summer."

In the fall, Neeley runs two basic patterns. The shoreline at Rhodhiss is littered with laydown trees, some of which are left over from the area's bout with Hurricane Hugo, and Neeley pays special attention to them.

"At Rhodhiss, topwater fishing is very good around all of those blowdowns," he said. "I'll fish them the better part of the morning and late in the afternoon, and I can usually catch a nice stringer of fish just doing that. Sometimes they'll hit a Fluke, and I'll use a Chugger or Chugger Jr., and any of those propeller baits works well.

"On up into the middle of the day, I'll use a Carolina rig with a Zoom lizard or worm off the main-lake points and do pretty well."

Neeley said that he normally casts into about 10 feet of water with a Carolina rig and works it out into about 20 feet before it drops off into the old Catawba River channel. In October, he'll replace the Carolina rig with a crankbait.

"It's a fairly shallow lake," he said. "It's deep on the lower end, but the rest of it is shallow to me. Really, I fish all over it. You can fish it from one end to the other in a day, and you can tell the fish don't get hit too hard. You don't have to do too much to catch your limit. It really has to be a rough day not to catch a limit. There's just not that much pressure; the fish aren't shown that much."