Lumber River

After scouring maps for a couple days I landed on the Chalk Banks access to the Lumber River.  It's only 16 miles from the house and looks to be a wide, winding, slow moving, section of the fabled Lumber.  Plan is to get down there early, paddle upstream a ways and then fish my way back down.

Any of you guys fished this section of river?  Any advice for river fishing in general?  Anyone want to come with?  I have a truck and I can haul kayaks it's the shuttling part I get stuck at.  Would enable a longer float down what looks to be a quiet section of river.

I paddled the Lumber once in that area.  Put in at the boat ramp right off 401 and paddled up to the end of the State Park, then paddled back down.  All in all about 3 or 4 hours and that was taking my time.  You could probably put in at the State Park too and go upstream a ways then back down.

The water seemed too shallow in most places to fish, but there was definitely some fishy looking areas.

Very peaceful and relaxing paddle though, fishing or not.  I've only been once, but it's definitely on my list of places to return to

Very fishy, shallow, and snakey. 

I have always wanted to fish the lumber river! When do you plan on fishing it? I am out of state right now and plan on being back in NC at the end of the month. If you head out before then please post some pics and a report!

Well stopped for breakfast right now. No signs of fish or bait on the way up. Gonna float a plastic and work a spinnerbait on the way back and see if I can make something hit. River looks low. Worried the fish might have gone downstream.

Off the river after 10 hours. Paddled up 1.5 miles.  Worked my way back.


While I was parked in the shallows I noticed minnows swimming around and changed over to a small silver Rapala neutral buoyancy minnow.  That did the trick.  Pulled out 2 bream, second one was as big as my hand and fought like a much larger bass. Caught the bass after.  Bream hit in the middle of the river, bass were holding up completely out of the current.


The water level was down and all the bigger fish were in one turn of the river in a super deep eddy. They were consistently breaking the water. The largest I saw was easily over 20 inches and I don't think any of them were under 2 lbs. I was at that eddy for probably 4 hours. They would not take a lure. The current was drifting them easy meals so the minnow lure that worked on the rest of the river was to fast there.  I threw literally everything in my tackle box from multiple directions.  Nothing.  I had the big guy just do a lazy topwater roll a foot behind my spro frog.  After losing my lipless crankbait when it got hung up in a tree and then the branch AND my line broke and it went sinking into the eddy and breaking off lines on both rods I finally left. Caught one more bass in a creek inlet but he jumped off before I got a picture. 
Good kayaking trip and good fishing trip makes for a great day. First river kayaking fishing trip was a success.

















Now what would guys have done to land those eddy bass?  Middle of the day, air temp low 70s, water was stained with ~1.5ft visibility, river had full tree cover, bend in the river created an eddy 10+ ft deep with the current doing a complete 180 and back flowing on the outside edge of the turn.
The other fish smashed the minnow on a normal retrieve.  The larger bass would not touch anything with varied presentations, fast, slow, floating, hell I even ran my deep diving crank bait and hula popper.  The only thing I think I could have done differently is have a good shad colored floating minnow and twitch it or a shad colored soft plastic that I could have floated to give them something easier than the river feeding them.  Between the larger fish knowing they just had to sit and wait for an easy meal and not being able to get a natural presentation with the current completely changing directions in the middle I don't think I stood a chance.

you are fishing my home waters!! sorry i didnt see this sooner what u saw bust on top wasnt bass it was the bows they  come to top to breath and sit in there and eat anything that happens to tickle their fancy if you want to tangle with those any type of craw fish works but i like to use the rage tail craws in summer craw color the light green with dark green top and texas rig it they cant stand it the bass will hit anything black and gold i love throwing a black buzz bait or a gold and silver devils horse good luck next time those bass in there are tricky in there but bream and redbreast are awesome in there

Yea I posted on NC angler and those guys told me about bowfin, did a little homework and that's definitely what they were.  I had never seen them before.

That's the only time I've been on the Lumber.  Not being able to shuttle just makes it a pain.  I've got to many fishy spots close to the house to spend half a day paddling upstream.

Since your a Red Springs local do you know anything about the large pond/cypress forest off 72 south of town?  I went down there Friday to check it out and was politely told by one of the locals fishing under the bridge that it's private.  Looks very fishy.  I've got a cypress forest by me that's about 1/2 that size and it's a blast.

ohhhhhh yes yes yes that place is very very very fishy i got the privelage to fish it back in july i think it was and the crappie in there are amazing i posted on nc angler about gold crappie look it up on there im redspringsfisherman on those forums but yes unfortunately its very private and u have to know some one that knows the owner to get in it he lives in Charlotte  or somewhere up that way but if you ever get in there throw chart curly tails with a pink head and hang on lol

I'll just scratch that pond off the list then.  It's a shame.  Seems like most ponds are 22 miles from the house, that one included.  Would have liked to get it into the rotation.  Unless you can put me in touch with someone.  I'm on the water a ton and have no complaints doing a little land management.

We probably fish a lot of the same spots, hit me up if you're heading out.  Unless the weather is cold, windy, post front garbage I'm probably on the water.

going tomorrow to chase crappie and bass tomorrow your more than welcome to come its in your area in hoke county

Got a friend coming in tomorrow night.  Depends when he gets in and I get out of work.  I'll shoot you a PM if I'm out of work in time to hit the water.  Never fished for crappie I chase bass and end up with jacks.  I've got an ultra light rod collecting dust though.

sent u pm Luni