Fishing and Wildlife at CCNC
 
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 Fishing at The Country Club of North Carolina

CCNC has a fine array of ponds and lakes for your fishing enjoyment. All the lakes have fish in them to catch. We will look at the five main lakes and their fishing characteristics. We will look at 15-501 lake, Watson lake, Dornoch lake, Urquhart pond, and #3 cardinal pond. All the information on these 5 lakes and ponds will work in all the ponds.

15-501 lake is the upper lake in our three lake chain. It is located adjacent to 15-501 east of the main gate on St Andrews. This lake is the shallowest of the lakes and is the hardest to fish. Access is limited to the dam area or boat.

This lake has a high amount of Chain Pickerel our fiercest predator, a mouth full of teeth and unwanted guest. Any time this fish is caught we would ask that you kill them or remove them from the lakes. The reason for this is that they are a direct competitor for the Bass and the Bass growth is reduced when this fish becomes overpopulated.

This lake has a high amount of vegetation in the water making fishing more difficult. The good news is it provides a hiding place for bait fish and so makes it easier to find the Bass and Crappie that feed on the bait fish. 

The lures of choice here and in any area that has a lot of grass would be some form of plastic lure that the point of the hook could be buried in the lure. This keeps the lure from catching as much grass.  Frog lures and plastic's work great in this lake and are very weedless. When the grass gets very thick you can take a heavy weighted plastic and get it to punch through the upper grass and into the more open area below where the fish are looking for food. The lures that work best here a plastic worms, paddle tail worms, salamanders, and craw fish plastics. Don't forget the frogs.

There is a short dock out into this lake and you can always get on it and fish live minnows, crickets or worms for whatever swims by.

Our next lake in the chain is Watson. This lake has been here over 100 years and was once a fishing club. Because of its size and depth it offers a large array of areas to fish a lot of different ways. This lake varies in depth from a few feet in the upper areas to 12 feet around the dam. There is good foot access to this lake from the dam and the area below the swimming pool. Fishing in these areas is very good.

This is the ideal area to fish with live bait. The first choice would be minnows. These come in 3 basic sizes: bass, the largest of the minnows; and Crappie minnows that come in both medium and small. All the fish in the ponds will eat the mid and small minnows. Only the larger fish; Bass, Pickerel and hybrids will eat the largest minnows.

Watson is unique in that it has marked areas that brush piles under the surface to attract bait fish and in turn attract predator fish. There are 15 of these and all have at least 4 piles under them. They are marked by a white PVC pipe visible on the surface. These areas are best fished with deep running crank baits, weighted worms and live bait. There are other areas that have brush piles that are marked with floating bobbers. Be careful these have rope down to a weight and can easily be caught while fishing.

Watson, being a deeper lake has less weeds in the deeper areas and hard crank baits work very well. As you fish in the shallower areas shallow running crank baits work well along with unweighted worms, weighted worms, and frog patterns.

Remember that fish have three needs; food, cover and oxygen. As the weather changes fish move. Hot weather and cold weather drive fish to deeper water. More temporal times fish are everywhere.

Watson has a large Bream spawn and they are easy to see and catch. It occurs in May around the two full moons. Their beds are easy to see from a boat and are large yellow areas close to shore. These fish can be easily caught with Beetle spins and live bait. This is the perfect time to take a young person on their first fishing trip because they will catch a lot of fish.

Watson has a large population of bait fish so the Bass population is high and healthy.

A boat can be launched on the boat ramp below the swimming pool. Electric motor's only no gas.

Lake Dornoch is the third lake in the chain. It is long and thin and ranger is depth from a few feet to 14 at the dam area. This lake is 7 feet and less from the tee on #4 Dogwood up to #11 Dogwood.

This area is full of stumps and submerged old trees. This area is best fished with shallow running cranks, worms and lizards. Top water baits like spooks, frogs and poppers work well.

The area from #4 Dogwood to the dam is where you will find the Hybrid Bass. This is a mix of Striper and White Bass. They are best caught at early morning and late evening. They eat bait fish so the bait of choice is a crank bait that will run deep. This is a hard fighting fish that loves to go deep. The baits for the part of the lake would be weighted worms. These can be either Carolina rigged or Texas rigged. Another good choice is deep running crank baits. Top water baits work well on this part of the lake as an attractor lure so they have to be fished with a lot of movement and noise.

A boat launch is available at both sides of the dam area and can be accessed from the service road behind and along side of #5 Dogwood.

The other two lakes were Urquhart and #3 both on Cardinal golf course. These fish well with all the baits we have talked about to this point, but one of the best is the black salamander on a slider hook with the barb bent down. The reason to bend the barb down is ensure that the hook can easily be removed if the fish swallows the lure.

Remember when fishing these lakes that the golfers have priority and to stay out of their way.

Another way to fish these lakes is with a fly rod. The Bass and Bream will come eagerly to a fly that is well presented.

What seems to work best is to cast the fly on the water and let it sit until all the ripples are gone. Then give it a few small pops then let it sit and repeat.

We would ask that all Bass would be released back into the lakes and all Pickerel be removed from the lakes. The bream and Crappie can be kept and eaten if you wish to do so.

Have Fun and Good Fishing