Fishing Forecast: For best action, anglers should head for hills

Head for the hills for perhaps the most promising freshwater fishing action taking place in the Carolinas.

Specifically, go to Fontana Lake in the Great Smoky Mountains.

Anglers are scoring limits with a mix of five smallmouth and spotted bass per day at picturesque Fontana, with largemouth also showing in the catch.

The bass are feeding right along the shoreline, taking live shiners. Gulp! and Andrew Minnow lures are enticing hits, too.

As a bonus, the bite of Fontana’s tasty walleye is improving. Best tactic for hooking these fish is casting either a jerk bait or crawler on a jig head to a discolored shoreline pocket.

Lake Norman: Very good for a mix of largemouth and spotted bass in numbers, but the fish mostly are small. They’re hitting white swim jigs cast to docks, swim and jerk lures worked around points. Hybrids in surface-feeding schools during early morning and late afternoon. White perch are starting to concentrate in schools 25-70 feet deep. Continuing good for crappie around brush and docks.

Lake Wylie: Good to excellent for blue catfish in the upper reaches of the reservoir on cut baits. Good to very good for largemouth bass on a variety of lures. Continuing good for crappie, mainly on minnows.

Mountain Island Lake: Still yielding good catches of crappie.

Union County Lakes: A 9 1/2-pound largemouth bass this week at Lake Lee. Catfish and crappie are biting well at all four impoundments – Cane Creek Park, Lee, Monroe and Twitty. Cane Creek Park a bit most consistent for crappie.

Yadkin/Pee Dee River Lakes: Crappie are still the main catch the length of the chain – High Rock, Tuckertown, Badin, Tillery and Blewett Falls. For the third straight week Badin and Tillery have produced best. Very high water is pouring over the dam at Blewett Falls. Brought on by almost a week of rain, this has temporarily slowed the catch of American shad in the tailrace.

Lakes James, Rhodhiss, Hickory: Continuing catches of crappie at all three reservoirs, but the bite appears to be slowing a tick. Smallmouth are hitting shiners well at James and largemouth are active at Rhodhiss and Hickory, striking a variety of lures cast to the shorelines.

Rankin Lake: Improving dramatically for bream, mostly on crickets, at the Gastonia municipal reservoir. Catfish also are biting well.

Hampton Lake, Yadkin County: Still producing very good catches of crappie. Largemouth are hitting well, too.

Lake Wateree: Very good for largemouth on soft plastic lures. Good for catfish by anchoring over ledges where there is current and using cut baits. Fair to good for crappie on minnows in the backs of creeks and via long-line trolling.

Lake Thurmond: Continuing fair to good for surface-feeding striped bass in schools on topwater lures, bucktails and live herring.

Lake Murray: Good to very good lake-wide for striped bass with practically all techniques working – using cut and live baits, trolling, casting to surfacing schools. Stripers up to 30 pounds have been caught during the last week. Good for catfish on humps and points. Fair for largemouth and shellcrackers.

Santee Cooper Lakes: Good for crappie around cover 10-20 feet deep. Limits of bream to 1 1/2 pounds as the fish move very shallow. Good for stripers on cut and live baits in the upper reaches of Lake Marion and the feeder rivers. Good for largemouth in cover 6 feet deep and less.

Lake Hartwell: Very good for stripers lake-wide over the points on free-lined live herring. Good for blue catfish 10-12 feet down in the creeks on traditional baits. Channel catfish 2-10 feet deep around points on crawlers and cut baits. Largemouth along the shoreline on soft plastic lures.

Lake Keowee: Largemouth and spotted bass around points on artificial worms, flukes.

Lake Jocassee: Good for smallmouth and spotted bass around shoreline cover, including boulders, on crawdad-type lures. A 6 1/2-pound spotted bass was weighed in during the past few days.

Outer Banks: Nags Head area: Mostly slow because of unfavorable weather conditions, but improvement anticipated this weekend; Oregon Inlet: Yellowfin tuna and dolphin when the ocean isn’t too rough for charter boat skippers to take parties offshore; Hatteras Island: Excellent offshore for dolphin when sea conditions are good. Many of these fish are big. Blues, whiting in the surf at Avon and Buxton, blowtoads, puppy drum and whiting at Frisco, blues at Hatteras Inlet. A monster 12-pound sheepshead in the surf near Ramp 55 over the dunes; Ocrakcoke Island: Gaffer dolphin offshore. Fair for blues, drum and whiting in the surf; Morehead City area: Atlantic bonito and blues around the artificial reefs off Atlantic Beach. False albacore and bonito on the east side of the Cape Lookout Shoals. Blackfin tuna, wahoo and yellowfins offshore during good sea conditions. Limits of blues, along with whiting, at piers.

Southeastern N.C. Coast: Black drum, red drum and increasing numbers of flounder in the surf, at piers and in the backwaters. Blowtoads and whiting at piers. Continuing speckled trout at Oak Island and other piers from dawn to mid-morning. Blackfin and yellowfin tuna offshore, along with wahoo. More and more Spanish mackerel are arriving close to the beach.

S.C. Coast: Little River area: Good for blues, along with croaker and whiting; Grand Strand area: Spanish mackerel are starting to show. Continuing good for black drum, sheepshead at the Murrells Inlet and Georgetown jetties. Flounder in the backwaters. Good offshore for blackfin tuna, dolphin and wahoo. Blues, whiting at the piers along with some Spanish; Charleston area: Blackfins and wahoo offshore. Reds in the backwaters, mostly at the mouths of creeks; Beaufort/Hilton Head area: Fair to good for reds in the backwaters on mud minnows and a variety of lures.

This story was originally published April 29, 2015 at 11:55 AM with the headline "Fishing Forecast: For best action, anglers should head for hills."