Spoon-feeding Santee Cooper stripers

Fall is perfect for spoon fishing

Striper season opened on the Santee Cooper lakes last month, and the season is off to a great start according to Capt. Joe Dennis of Captain J Hook Charters (843-245-3762).

“My anglers have been catching lots of stripers in a variety of sizes, including some of the biggest fish we’ve seen in years,” he said. “You can catch them in a variety of ways, but one of the most fun ways is by using spoons.”

Dennis prefers Berry’s Flex It Spoons, which are easy to bend, allowing the spoon to flutter in wildly different ways. The technique is simple.

“You make a short cast so that the spoon falls through the water column and ends up directly below you,” said Dennis. “Then you simply reel it in with a fast retrieve. You don’t have to jig it, pause your retrieve, or anything. Just reel it straight up.”

Reel it fast

And Dennis said there’s no need to slow down.

“It’s not possible to reel it too fast. You can crank it with all you have and if a striper wants it, he’s going to get it,” he said.

To get the stripers fired up and honed in, Dennis likes to anchor down and turn on his Thumper, which makes a thumping sound and draws stripers into range. And when they see these spoons, they attack them.

“You can watch the screen of your depthfinder and once you start the Thumper, you’ll see the stripers appearing,” he said.

These fish stay on the move, so Dennis said there’s no certain place on the lakes to find them with this technique.

“One day you might find them near the dam, and the next day you might not see a single one there,” he said. “But a lot of times, you can find them throughout the lake in a variety of places and depths. The striper population is very good, and these fish are healthy and hungry.” ■