Striper season starts!

This month is much anticipated by Santee Cooper’s anglers, for a number of reasons.

One of the top reasons is because striper season opens back up on Oct. 1. After the annual 4-month closure, anglers are more than ready to begin catching these fish again, and it shouldn’t be a problem according to Capt. Joe Dennis of Chasin’ the Wild Outdoors TV.

“October is the perfect month to chase stripers on the Santee Cooper lakes,” said Dennis, who usually guides out of Canal Lakes on the Diversion Canal. “The weather is nice, and the stripers can be caught a number of different ways this month.”

One of the most productive ways is using live bait on down lines. To do this, Dennis watches his electronics and pinpoints the location of stripers.

“They are pretty easy to find on even basic depthfinders,” he said.

Once he marks the depth stripers are holding, he’ll drop his live baits, which are usually menhaden.

“Menhaden is like striper candy. They love it,” he said. “I like to put my bait about a foot or so above where the stripers are holding. They’ll come up for bait much more readily than they’ll go down for it.”

Yo-yo ‘em up

Another effective way to catch stripers this time of year is to use a spoon, dropping it straight down, then reeling it back up quickly, pausing at times to drop the spoon back down again.

Fishing in this yo-yo style, anglers need to pay close attention because stripers can hit the lure at any time, and often hit it while the spoon is dropping.

It’s easy to get into a lull of dropping, reeling, and dropping again, so anglers often miss a strike when the stripers aren’t feeding very aggressively.

When the stripers are feeding aggressively, fishing with this method is one you’ll never forget.

Hit ‘em on top

A third way for anglers to entice Santee’s stripers into biting this time of year is with topwater lures like Heddon Super Spooks and Rapala Skitter Walks. The best way to locate schooling stipers is by watching for birds diving. When stripers are schooling, they’ll push baitfish to the surface, and the birds will see this happening, then fly to the area and begin diving on the baitfish.

This is probably the most fun way to catch stripers, but it’s all dependent on the stripers getting into feeding frenzies. It’s always a good idea to have topwater lures tied on to a dedicated rod, then to fish using the other two methods, keeping a watch on the water for diving birds. The topwater bite will appear quickly, and can disappear just as quickly, so when you see fish hitting the surface, get your boat to them as fast as possible, stop when you’re within casting range, then cast to them until the fish go back down.

Stripers aren’t the only species that’s biting on the Santee Cooper lakes this month, but it sure is fun to catch them. Dedicating a full day to chasing them is well worth it.