Robertson Mill Pond Preserve Fishing & Paddling Guide

 Robertson Mill Pond 

Robertson Mill Pond is a 60 acre mill pond located on Buffalo creek near the town of Wendell , NC     This millpond on Buffalo Creek was impounded sometime around 1820  and has survivied countless hurricanes.  Buffalo Creek is a tributary of the Little river in Johnston County and this millpond is located on mile 25 of Buffalo creek.   This mill pond is now an 85 acre Wake County park and sees lots and lots of visitors.  This is a great place to paddle and see a Bald Cypress forest.   If you plan on fishing this millpond  I would suggest during the months of April through September to fish it on a weekday.     ( I will have a fishing video and a Drone video located at the bottom of this article ) and fishing info towards the bottom as well. 

Park hours are from 8am till sunset 7 days a week and the park is closed on Thanksgiving day, Christmas eve, Christmas day and New Years so this Mill pond park provides 361 days of paddling pleasure!  The park facility has 18 parking places, several places for vehicles with canoe/kayak trailers and a small field for over flow parking.   No  permanent bathrooms are here but they do have a porta-jon bathroom.

Here is a picture of the parking area

This millpond is very shallow but depths near the dam approach 10 feet.   The millpond is NOT an open body of water .  Basically 90 percent of this millpond you are paddling through a very tight Bald Cypress forest. 

Here is an aerial photo of this Millpond and I have the mill ponds aprox banks traced. The brownish colored trees are the cypress trees. 

Here is a map of the padde trail  

Kayaks can be rented but to do that you need to connect with Tar River Life which handles the rentals. 

 Here are the boating rules for Robertson Mill Pond 

• Life jackets are required 
• Electric motors only, no gasoline motors
• All NC fishing & boating regulations apply
• There is no launch fee for your own kayak

Now for the fishing !

IMHO old millponds like this only provide so so fishing.  That being said they can provide good days and are still fun to fish. 

What species of fish inhabit this millpond?

Here are the ones I know that live here.

Bluegill -  Bream to us southerners.

Redear sunfish - Shellcrackers to us southerners

Chain Pickerel -  "Jack" to us southerners

Black Crappie

Flier

Bullhead Catfish

Channel Catfish

Largemouth Bass

Warmouth

Golden Shiner

Ones that I suspect live here -

Redfin Pickerel

Yellow Perch

Pumpkinseed

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Flier 

Chain Pickerel  Aka Jack

Here is my fishing video on my YouTube Channel "Mack's Extreme River Fishing"

Here is my drone footage taken on April 4th 2026. 

Mack

#robertsonmillpond

#fishing

#robertsonmillpondfishing

"fishing robertson millpond" 

Awesome day of River Fishing

Jeff and my self made a float on a Piedmont River Sunday May 25th.   The Bass were hitting a Booya White Spinnerbait and a Zoom Pearl Fluke.   They were really getting after the Fluke and the technique was to skip them under overhanging bushes and trees getting the Fluke really close to the bank and working it out fast. Today We probably caught 20 plus bass apiece with Jeff getting his personal best river bass that was pushing 8 lbs.   Also caught along with the Bass were 3 good size Jacks.  Both of my Jacks hit the spinnerbait and the hooks held.  Last year at this same spot I lost 7 Jacks in one day!! .   
Midday I also trolled for crappie catching 20 or so and they all fell for a chartreuse roadrunner.   Several bream were caught along with the crappie so Jeff had a nice cooler of fish with several crappie, Bream and 2 nice Jacks.

Towards the end of this float is a dam and I talked Jeff into fishing the pools below it and I think he is glad he did catching his best river bass to date down there and I also caught my best fish of the day there.  Mine fell for the spinnerbait while Jeff caught his on a big beetlespin on 6 lb line!!!

WOW!!

 

 

We also saved two toads today as Jeff found an old perk hole that had 3 toads in it. One was dead and the other 2 could not get out.  I lightly hooked each one released them and then filled in that death trap.

 

Wildlife seen today was lots and lots of Great Blue Herons, a few wood ducks,  and some ospreys.

A great day of fishing.

 

Boat used- Coleman Scanoe with trolling motor

Best baits today-  Pearl Fluke, White Booyah Spinnerbait and the Chartreuse RoadRunner.

 

Mack 

 

 

Back to the Chain Pickeral (Jack) Capital of the World- Lake Mayo

This past Friday(4/19/14) I had promised my good friend Rodney that I would meet him somewhere to fish.   That somewhere where he wanted to go was Lake Mayo and since I hadn't been here in 2 years I was eager to wet a line here.   see-  http://mackinncblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/jack-chain-pickerel-capital-of-world.html

We both arrived at the launch at 2 pm and fished until dark.  Funny, this was about the same conditions I had last time.  A warm period then several cold nights to shut the fish off. It is really a wonder we caught anything.
After a lot of lure changing I finally found a lure they would hit.  The Rapala brokenback( J11) in Firetiger.  This may have not been the best pattern I may have found if I kept changing lures but I was happy to just catch fish after a few coooold nights so I stuck with the J11. Most fish came by casting parallel to the bank and maybe 10 yds off the bank.
I caught 3 Jack and maybe 6 Bass on it with 1 Bass falling to a Roadrunner.

Get your  Rapala FireTiger  J11 Here - https://amzn.to/3VCP1NH

Here are a few pictures-

Nothing over 2 lbs today but I was just happy having a tug on the line.

Mack

Piedmont Small Stream Chain Pickerel

February 7th, 2013

Duke Forest

New Hope Creek

  I had caught zero fish this year and I was getting pretty restless wanting to catch something slimy .   Where would I go?  I didn't have the time or confidence to make a trip to some of my usual haunts  with this cold weather so I figured a trip to a spot that held a lot of Chain Pickerel aka "Jack"  would maybe get me a fish or two. I decided to hit a small stream in the Piedmont that has a few Jack in it.  

My rod would be a 5 1/2 ft lite spinning outfit loaded with  6 lb mono.  My lure of choice today would be a 1/6 oz Super Roostertail in red with red hackle.  This color combo is no longer made by Yakima Bait company in the super.

I arrived at the stream at aprox 11:30 am and immediately took the water temperature and it showed 42 degrees.  I started working several pools and at 1 pool I had 1 follow and 3 hits.  I caught this Jack which was maybe 13 inches. Not a monster but I will take it after a winter of not fishing. After not getting anymore hits I took a few pictures of this stream and left knowing I would be back here in warmer weather to catch a few bass and bream. 

Here are a few pics of this nice stream. A hidden jewel.

The last time I fished this stream was probably 5 or 6 years ago and I will be sure to make it back there by May.  Here are a few pics from that trip .

A Green Sunfish

"

Thanks for lookin. 

Mack

#dukeforest

#newhopecreek

#fishing

Lake Mayo - Jack ( Chain Pickerel ) Capital of the World

031212

Mayo Lake , NC

Ok, here in North Carolina we Have the Rockfish Capital of the World but I also believe we have the "Jack" Capital as well. Jack (Chain Pickerel ) live in the Piedmont and coastal plain of  North Carolina. Usually they are more common in down east blackwater creeks and millponds but the Piedmont has some good Jack waters as well. Lake Cammack in Burlington is one along with some other Piedmont millponds but nowhere in NC (in my opinion) can you catch as many Jack as in Lake Mayo.  I am usually a river fisherman but do "stray" once in a while. Today was one of those days. Lots of rain had all my favorite rivers and streams running high.    I knew if I went anywhere today it had to be Lake Mayo as Mayo Creek that feeds it is not big enough to muddy the whole Lake. I used to fish Mayo a lot back in the 80's but only fish it ocasionally now. When I was 14 and 15 I  used to Rabbit hunt a lot of the land that is now underwater.

Heck, I almost didn't go.  Warm weather and then last night it dips into the 30's with Bright bluebird skies today 3.28.12. No way would I even get a bite today. After taking care of some family business today I almost went back home and didn't fish today.  But fish I did, Good choice though no lunkers were caught, the number of bites surprised me. I arrived at the launch at aprox 5pm and fished till dark at 8.pm . The water temp was 65 degrees and I decided to mainly throw a white booyah spinnerbait . I also threw a Rogue and a Mepps minnow  but all bites came on the spinnerbait. Here is the today's lure of choice.

Here is the first bass of 6 caught. I lost 2 dinks and 1 spinnerbait as well.

This is another bass caught ...most caught today were small like this one but still fun to catch!

This is one of 2 Jacks. I didn't notice the really red tail until I got home and looked at the pictures ..They must be spawning right now.  I probably had 10 hits from  jacks but all  hits not aggressive and only 2 hooked. I actually watched several hits near the canoe but couldn't get a hook set on them.

Right at dark the air temp had dropped to almost 50 but I was still getting hits on the spinnerbait.  Thanks for looking,  Mack

#mayolake

#chainpickerel

#bassfishing

Piedmont River Float for Bass 3/18

I couldn't find anyone to fish with so I called up my good friend Steve to see if he could go, LOL......Anyway, we hit up a local river to see what was up with this stretch and found some good spots. We didn't fish alot as were we mainly running and gunning checking out spots,  if you can call it that with an electric motor as our power.
The water was slightly stained and up with a water temp of 60 degrees. All fish were caught on spinnerbaits except one on a Cordell Spot.

Here is a nice Bass Steve got with a spinnerbait

Here is Steve with a Jack (Chain Pickerel ) that crushed his spinnerbait.

Look at this Bass, It's tail is half gone!

A nice view of the River

Another oddity for today is this Bass's bright red eyes. They were actually more red in person or is that more red in fish?......

We probably caught 8 bass but could of caught more but we were pre- fishing for an up-coming tournament and once we found fish we moved on to find other concentrations of fish. Today we probably found 5-6 really good spots but we will probably fish the Catawba river as that is where we crushed them last week.

Mack