Home Care In Belews Creek, NC

When Duke Power. created Belews Lake in 1973, fishermen had high expectations about the bass fishery, since new fisheries typically explode with large numbers of fish, though they may be small in size.

One year later, those expectations disappeared when selenium, a wastewater by-product of the Belews Creek Steam Station, leaked into the lake. The undetected spills occurred from 1974 through 1984, raising havoc with the fishery from mid-lake near the steam station to the dam, while leaving the southern portion of the lake largely uncontaminated.

In 1986, scientists discovered that selenium toxicity was the culprit. The selenium poisoning caused deformities to the spine, head, fins and eyes of fish; it also caused reproductive failure that decimated 19 of the 20 species in the lake.

Dennis Lemly, a U.S. Forest Service research biologist at the Southern Research Station, spent 20 years studying the effects of selenium on the Belews Lake fishery.

“Belews Lake represents one of the most-extensive and prolonged cases of selenium poisoning of freshwater fish in the United States,” Lemly was quoted as saying. “It provides an excellent case study of the insidious and persistent toxicity of selenium to aquatic ecosystems.

“Selenium poisoning in fish can be invisible for a time because the primary impact is on the egg, which receives the toxin from the mother’s diet. When the eggs are hatched, the developing fish metabolize the selenium. Some fish are visibly deformed, but others grow into adult fish that appear healthy yet fail to reproduce. Because there is no apparent fish kill, species can disappear before you can do anything about it.”

Once the effects of selenium became known, Duke Power rerouted the selenium-tainted wastewater from its steam station.

Though some selenium remains in the sediment, its impact has diminished.

“One indication of this is that the fish-consumption advisory on the lake has been removed for some 15 years,” said Kinnon Hodges, a fisheries biologist with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission.

Another indication relates to fish-density samplings conducted by Hodges.

“The densities of fish we collect during our electrofishing surveys in the main body of the lake and the upstream end of the lake are nearly identical,” he said. “If selenium was still having significant impact, you’d expect to see a lot higher density of fish in the upstream end of the lake than you would in the main body of the lake where the selenium contamination occurred.”

A 2007-2009 study by Hodges attributed the difference in bass growth rates from one end of the lake to the other to the warmer water temperatures of the northern section, though further study of the cooler southern portion is needed.

“The fish in the warm section exhibit faster growth rates during their first three years, but they don’t live very long,” he said. “That’s why there’s an abundance of 10- to 15-inch fish in Belews, but not many larger fish. That’s not an unexpected finding; it’s typical of heated lakes.”

Kinnon said Belews is a nutrient-poor lake, which accounts for its clear waters and its low productivity.

“The bass in Belews are long and lean, not pot-bellied like Lake Jordan bass, because of the lake’s limited food supply,” he said.

With water temperatures low because of cold weather across most of the state, freshwater anglers are having a tough time finding active bites — except at hot-hole lakes.

One of those lake is Belews that stretches across Rockingham, Stokes and Guilford counties. Belews Creek forms the 3,863-acre impoundment and its waters are warmed by the Belews Creek Steam Station, Duke Energy’s largest coal-fired heating plant in North Carolina.

“The average water temperature across the lake is running between 52 and 55 degrees, except within a half mile of the steam plant where it’s 60-degrees plus,” said bass pro Joel Richardson of Kernersville.

Most N.C. lakes have winter water temperatures in the 40-degree range.

Richardson and John Teal placed first and second during a recent Belews bass tournament, fishing Carolina rigs and shaky head rigs in 30-feet of water and deeper with Richardson landing the tournament’s lunker, a 4-pounder.

“The main lures we’re using are Carolina- rigged or shaky head (soft-plastic) worms,” Richardson said.

A 4 1/2-inch finesse worm fished with 8-pound-test or lighter line works well with a shaky head jig. Light line imparts more action to shaky heads. Shaky head jigs come in two shapes — football and round — with a line eyelet set at a 90-degree angle to the hook shank in order to present the lure on the bottom with the hook (impaled in a soft-plastic lure) pointing upward, away from snags.

Best bites at Belews have been from dawn until 11:30 a.m., then from 1:30-2 p.m. until dark. Shaky Head bites are perceived as slight “tics” on an angler’s line in winter.

“The main baitfish in the lake are threadfin and gizzard shad, but the bass are eating little bream down deep,” Richardson said. “Two guys who caught bass had them spit up bream 2 1/2-inches long. Some of those bass have come from water as deep as 42 feet.”

Some shallow-water bass fishing also is available at Belews, Richardson said, but he hasn’t targeted those fish because they’re usually more scattered than concentrated deep largemouths.

“If a man didn’t know the lake and came out during the week, he could fish steep banks with rocks and big laydowns on them that lay out into 10 to 15 feet of water and catch fish with a shaky head worm,” he said.

Richardson said a plastic worm is difficult to beat in winter “because the water’s so clear. Belews is the only lake I know where the worm is king in cold weather, except maybe Lake Norman (Charlotte) or Lake Lanier (Georgia).”