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While Dearal has learned to successfully fish lakes as different as Texas’ Lake Travis, New York’s Lake Champlain (“the Sixth Great Lake”), and Alabama’s Lake Guntersville, he cut his teeth on Lake Wateree and it will probably always be the lake he knows best. Dearal started fishing Lake Wateree with his uncles when he was only ten years old, and usually fishing on his own he has put in thousands of hours learning the lake. He has gone on to win numerous bass tournaments on Lake Wateree, and he was the 2005 and 2006 Wateree Bassmaster Angler of the Year. Despite a busy national tournament calendar and less time spent on his home lake these days he is still a dominant force on Lake Wateree; just this spring he won back to back CATT tournaments on the lake, including the April 11 CATT Spring Final where he bested 63 other boats to claim the championship. Since Dearal had already shared many of his tips and techniques for spring bass fishing on Lake Wateree with me, I knew how generous he is with his knowledge, and so I was thrilled when he offered to give me a follow-up lesson about Lake Wateree summer bass fishing. When Dearal offered to take me fishing and show me some of his favorite spots on the lake and how to fish them, I knew I was in for a treat. Bank Pounder Jim (“timmerberg” on here) was more than willing to go along for the ride!
Dearal Rodgers says that when Lake Wateree surface temperatures pass 80 degrees slight variations in water temperature don’t seem to matter, and he generally disregards the thermometer. As the summer progresses the bite will get harder and harder, though, and fish may only feed one or two times per day. It is not uncommon to see good numbers of fish on the graph but for it to be difficult to draw a strike from the lethargic bass.
There is some shallow fishing in the summer on Lake Wateree, and very occasionally there will be a topwater bite when shad are corralled shallow and bass are chasing them. Buzzbaits are a good lure to throw at these times. However, in general Dearal believes that fish move deeper in the summer on Lake Wateree, and he has found that there are two reliable patterns for catching bass when it’s hot. The first is fishing offshore structure and particularly deep ledges, and the second is fishing around docks loaded with brush in or adjacent to deep water. Note: Deep is a relative term and since Lake Wateree is a shallow lake “deep” on Lake Wateree is much more shallow than it would be on other lakes; “deep” on Lake Wateree isn’t all that different from “shallow” on Lake Jocassee. Dearal has caught fish as far down as 25 feet in Lake Wateree, but “deep” generally means 10-15 feet of water.
Although humps rising off of deep flats are important structure, Dearal believes that the most important offshore type of structure for summer bass fishing on Lake Wateree are deep ledges. These ledges lie along the old creek and river channels and bass orient to them for several reasons. Ledges offer a highway for bass to move along and also provide a variation in the bottom for structure-oriented fish, but the most important reason bass orient to ledges is because that is where the prey can be found. Shad, crawfish, and bluegill can all be found at the ledges, but it is the shad that really get the bass excited. Dearal says that just like people go to a restaurant when they want to eat, bass go to a ledge.
One of the first ledges that we visited when Jim and I went fishing with Dearal was a fairly well-known spot near the ramp at Clearwater Cove. While we didn’t catch any fish there on that day the graph was covered with bass. Tournament release points are well known fishing spots, and Dearal says that there are enough good fish within 500 yards of Clearwater Cove to win every tournament on Lake Wateree, any time of the year.
Over the next hour or two, Dearal showed me a variety of different ledges in the lower part of Lake Wateree. We would often set up to fish parallel to the ledge, which allows the bait to stay in the strike zone longer, but Dearal was always careful to make sure we ultimately fished the ledges from several different angles. At times the fish might want a bait coming over the ledge to deeper water, at times they might want it moving parallel to the ledge, and at times they might want it running into the ledge wall. We cast shallow to deep, along the ledge, and also deep to shallow, making sure we gave finicky summer fish a look at the lure from different directions. If water is coming down the river or being drawn through the dam for power, current can also make a difference in how you set up to fish the ledge.
Fishing ledges is part science but also part art, and there is no substitute for practice and developing a “feel” for it. Dearal joked that he heard another pro say that he knows far more about fishing than he understands, and he feels that same way about ledge fishing.
Dearal worked three main lures fishing around the ledges, and he would generally throw each for three or four casts and then continue the rotation. His first bait, and about the only lure I fished, was a ¼ ounce Buckeye Lures Spot Remover on 8 pound fluorocarbon. He likes the Spot Remover Pro Model but also fishes a hand poured shakey head made by local pro Ronnie Watts, and Dearal believes that a junebug colored worm works best on Wateree.
The second lure in Dearal’s arsenal should be no secret to summer Wateree bass fishermen – a DD-22 crankbait. Dearal likes to use the diving plug in blueback color with chartreuse sides.
Dearal’s third summer lure should be even less of a surprise – a jig. He almost exclusively fishes a ¾ ounce brown and purple jig in the summer on Wateree, and his favorites are the Shooter jig and a Buckeye peanut butter and jelly football jig (both sold at http://www.cutmakerlures.com). If he were fishing a summer tournament on Wateree Dearal would probably fish one of these three lures most of the time, but he would likely have his partner pull a Carolina rig to give the fish something different to look at.
Deep ledges are the first important summer pattern on Lake Wateree, and the second is deep docks with lots of brush. The docks themselves do not have to be located in very deep water, but they need to be proximate to deep water. Dearal’s rule of thumb is that if there is not 15 feet of water within two boat lengths of a dock it is not deep enough for summer bass fishing.
After working the deep ledges pretty hard I had missed several fish and Dearal and Jim had both had a few mouth the bait without taking it, but our first (and best) bass came off a deep dock. The best docks are heavily loaded with brush, and Dearal says you should start out working the brush in front of and around the dock before fishing right beside or under it. On this particular dock Dearal told us that there is a creek channel running just in front of the dock in about 12 feet of water, and the owners have put ample brush just off the dock on the edge of the creek channel. Jim cast in front of the dock with his trusty Zoom Red Shad Ribbontail worm fished on a Texas rig, and set the hook on and landed a nice Wateree 5 and a half pounder.
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After working the periphery of a dock Dearal says that it is important to work it up close and from all different angles. Like Brett Collins he is particularly skillful at skipping a jig (his lure of choice for fishing docks) underneath them, and he emphasizes that the importance of precise casting cannot be overestimated.
Prior to Jim’s bass we were almost two hours into fishing and despite a few bites and marking lots of fish we still hadn’t managed to put anything in the boat, but the last hour and fifteen minutes of our fishing day demonstrated a very important rule for tournament bass fishing – don’t panic. If you get too nervous watching the tournament clock wind down you won’t make good decisions to find the bass or be able to catch fish if they do bite, and if they don’t bite on that day Dearal points out that panicking wouldn’t have helped!
After catching our big fish on a dock we moved back out to ledges for the last part of our day and put 6 bass in the boat. The fish may have decided to feed as the sun went down or we might have found the right spots, but we fished essentially the same way as earlier. However, Dearal did have us make one variation as the sun dropped which appeared to pay off. We went from fishing a brown jig to fishing black and blue jigs, and we changed our junebug colored shakey head worms to black grape worms. After making the change Jim and I caught several nice bass off deep ledges by casting at the angles Dearal instructed. I was especially impressed by how well the deep fish fought – although not as acrobatic as shallow bass, two pounders coming up from fifteen feet down felt more like five pounders, especially on spinning tackle.
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Bass slow down, get lethargic and feed more sporadically in the summer, and so a good summer day on Lake Wateree usually doesn’t mean catching as many fish as a good day in the spring would. However, by targeting deep ledges and docks we were able to put about 6 keepers in the boat over three hours, including a five pound plus fish. There is no substitute for having a skilled local guide show you around Lake Wateree or any other lake. However, armed with the information Dearal Rodgers has been good enough to share about the type of structure and cover to seek, and how to approach it, if you are willing to put the time in to learn this lake anyone can catch summer bass on Lake Wateree.
Thank you to Dearal for taking me fishing on Lake Wateree, and for once again imparting his wisdom on the SCFishingReport.com’s readers. I look forward to seeing what new challenges he decides to take on next year, and to watching him continue his success on the next level. For more information about Dearal and his company visit his websites http://www.dearalrodgers.com and http://www.cutmakerlures.com.