With Pickwick Lake on its north end and Bay Springs Lake directly to its south, the narrow canal connecting the two shouldn’t feel too badly if it flies completely under the radar.
And it’s no wonder anglers typically use the canal for navigation more so than fishing: Really, there’s not much to it, according to Stegall.
“It’s just pretty straight, with a few bends and curves,” he said. “It also has a few little runs-ins, creeks, some ditches and culverts. But it’s mostly just a line of riprap bank on both sides.”
And, as you could imagine with so many rocks around, there is a very large population of spotted bass that have taken up residence in this canal.
So if you’re looking for spotted bass, there’s no reason to stick only to Bay Springs.
The only problem with the canal, if it could really be called a problem, is that it is a boring place to fish with so much of the same kind of cover and structure that extends as far as the eye can see.
“It’s a good place to fish, but a lot of people don’t fish it,” Stegall said. “It’s just a boring, straight rock bank. But you can catch spots by fishing a topwater or square-bill crankbait off the rocks during October.”
Stegall mixes up his retrieves by getting up close to the rocks and making parallel casts, getting off the rocks and casting 45 degrees to the rocks, and getting on the rocks and casting out deep.
“You would think there would be some transition zones where you could find the fish, but that’s just not the case,” Stegall explained. “Most of the rocks are the same size, and it’s hard to distinguish certain areas where the fish should be. You may catch a pile of fish in a 50-yard stretch, and then go two miles without getting another bite.”
Stegall’s solution is to just keep pressing forward and fishing until he gets on the fish. He said he learned a long time ago that a 10-mile creek may only have fish in 100 yards of it.
“When it’s like that, you’ve just got to fish until you get in them,” Stegall said.
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