Striped bass are a hot bite on Lake Norman right now. I went fishing with Wes Lewis on Thursday evening and we landed four striped bass in the 23-inch range among a mixed bag of spotted bass, largemouth bass and white perch.
Wes is a bass tournament angler who lives on Lake Norman. He has a tourney this weekend but was kind enough to pick me up at the McCrary Creek boating access to get some casts in anyway. We fished the docks and rocks along the Lake Norman shore for a few hours and found plenty of fish willing to bite.
We started out catching spotted bass and a few largemouth bass around the docks. We were fishing Rapala crankbaits in mostly brown and gold colors. Bass were hitting the crankbaits around the docks and very close to the boat.
Eventually we came upon a school of white perch and had fun with them for awhile. The white perch were swarming around the crankbaits and we caught plenty in a small space just between two docks. I even broke out the crappie jigs and got a few perch that way, but they were aggressive enough that Wes was catching plenty just throwing the crankbaits.
It was nearing sunset when we spotted a flock of birds diving on baitfish right off of a dock near a channel about 13 feet deep. We worked the area and Wes started landing nice striped bass. I watched him catch 3 while operating the landing net for him.
I was beginning to fear I wouldn’t get in on the action when one of the brutes slammed into my crankbait just as it was getting to the boat. Those stripers are a powerful fish and he really put a zing into my drag. Wes finally got to net one for me as the sun was going down.
Wes usually releases his fish but I had an eye on my dinner table, and at the end of the evening we had a mess swimming in Wes’ live well. I kept the striped bass along with a few of the spotted bass and the white perch. Thanks to Wes showing me the ropes on Lake Norman they’ll be plenty of fish for the family this weekend.
For more fishing reports and articles check out my blog A Dash Of Salty
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