BY DANNY BLEVINS

STAR CORRESPONDENT

A few years back a minister friend of mine took a visitor from Texas fishing on Watauga Lake. It was a hot summer day, and even though they tried every bait and lure they had, they could not catch a fish.

Looking at his friend, the minister told him that Watauga Lake was in the Bible except the Bible referred to it as the Dead Sea!

Watauga Lake is certainly not the Dead Sea though it can seem like it at times. From early June until late August, fish are harder to catch than a weasel in a hen house. Many fishermen simply refer to this time period as the Summer Doldrums.

This is a time when game fish move to deeper water. When the water warms up, the fish move down into the lake where they can find cooler water and they only come up into the shallows to feed late at night when the water temperature has cooled.

The water temperature affects every species of game fish in the lake, and since Watauga is such a deep lake, the fish can move even deeper to where they are not bothered by the warm water and the bright sun of summer.

During this time good quality catches can be few and far between except fishing late at night when the water has cooled.

But then comes the magic month of September. When some people are turning their attention to hunting, smart fishermen are turning back to the lake. The water is cooling, the days are shorter and once again, the fish are biting.

This is my favorite time of year to fish Watauga. This fishing is not better than the springtime, but it is good enough that you can expect to catch some good size fish, and as the water cools and the autumn leaves change and fall off, the fish seem to get bigger and bigger.

Smallmouth, largemouth and spotted bass start hitting, walleye inhale almost anything in their way, and best of all, huge catfish are waiting for minnows to get in their way so they can fatten up.

This time period can be the best fishing of your life if you know where to fish and how.

For decent bass, try fishing structure that is no more than 10 or 15 feet deep. Use top-water crankbaits in minnow or shiner imitations or just use live minnows.

For walleye, you may have to go a little deeper, but they are there ready to be offered a shiner or a shiner imitation.

For catfish use shiners or cut bait for the bigger fish, and fish the bottom. Smaller fish can be caught in about 10-12 feet of water, but the bigger fish are deeper.

One of the largest catfish I have ever seen came off the bottom of Watauga a few years ago.

My wife was fishing a rainbow trout minnow on the bottom of the lake. The minnow had died, and she cut the dead minnow to allow it to bleed.

It wasn’t long before she hooked and landed a 50-pound channel catfish that took 40 minutes to get into the boat.

No, Watauga Lake is not the Dead Sea in the late summer and early fall. The fish are there just like they were in the spring, and they are waiting to get hooked by any angler willing to give up squirrel hunting, dove hunting, and deer hunting long enough to give them a try.

Try it. You may catch more than a fish. You may make a memory that lasts a lifetime.