November is not for negative-minded sportsmen

Sportsmen have plenty of great outdoor options at Santee Cooper in November. (Photo by Terry Madewell)

I have concluded that negative-minded people probably can’t survive in Santee Cooper Country during November. If you’re into fishing and hunting, the positive energy of the outdoor world from the Santee River swamps through the Santee and Cooper Rivers can consume you with fun-filled outdoor options. The only question is, with so many thrilling adventures awaiting, can we find time to enjoy them all in November?

Well, I never get them all done, but I’ve got to try, and here are some favorites.

From a birds-eye overview, my mind knows that stripers are schooling on lakes Marion and Moultrie. November is the month when I’ve enjoyed the most prolific striper schooling action of the year, and big stripers take the point when pursuing shad. Size-wise, stripers generally average larger this month than any time during the fall, and these beasts rock the lake system’s surface.

Some line-sided fish literally clear the water’s surface when attacking shad, providing a visual on a target that’s hard-charging big pods of threadfin and scattering them out of the water. Stripers mauling shad churn the water to a froth in a feeding frenzy.

Fast fishing

Successfully fishing a November school of stripers is also about handling the squawking, squealing, diving, and overall frantic activity of scores of seagulls acting fools for the free food. Feeding aggressively on the shad that stripers push to the water’s surface, these birds make an observer believe this may be their last opportunity to eat, right before they perish from starvation.

These critters compound the already off-the-chart excitement to next level pleasure, testing your fishing mettle. Suppose you can focus through these loud, visual distractions created by stripers and gulls, and remember to cast a lure through the chorus of chaos into the brick-like splashes of shad-mauling stripers. If you do, you’ll get your arm socket stretched with a savage strike from a frantic fish.

Anglers require dead-end nerves to avoid a backlash; heck, they need a calm presence to simply remember to cast. Acting requires an in-the-moment focus, not a simple stare with mouth agape at the sight and sound of schooling stripers and starving gulls.

A couple of acres of stripers schooling around the boat is not only possible, but highly likely. How you handle it is up to you. November stripers are a favorite memory and one I need to relive every fall.

Make low-level, line-drive casts to your target. The ‘floater casts’ of a high-lofted topwater lure have the potential to be consumed by a scavenging seagull that believes shad minnows can fly. But that’s a story for another time.

Catfish, too

More than stripers are on the November fish-catching menu at Santee Cooper. November is a prime month for fat and sassy blue catfish to bite recklessly. Blues thrive in cooler water temperatures, and it appears to make them mean and ornery. They’ll take your heavy-action catfish rod tip from a stable 30-degree angle, secured in a rod holder, to buried three eyes deep in the water in a single thump in a half-heartbeat of time duration. And the drag’s high-pitched scream that’s trying to slow a freight train is likely your first clue a ‘toad’ has loaded up.

A giant blue catfish lives a simple life, except for a brief period during the spawn. Its life story involves looking for food and then eating that food.

By November, the ‘teeners’ that seemed so prolific earlier in the fall now take their rightful place in the chow line behind the big cats. It’s trophy catfish time, and if you’re looking for giant catfish, these lakes yield many bruiser blues every November. But the flip side is with just a little searching and a change of tactics, you can find scads of 8- to 18-pound blues to fill your cooler and feed your family all winter.

Did I mention the deer rut is peaking in our area? The area around the Santee Cooper lakes offers tremendous habitat diversity. The swamps, old-growth hardwood bottoms, and cutover pine thickets in various stages of regrowth combine to provide big bucks everything they need to survive. Well, everything except caution. The rut occasionally compromises their acute sense of survival during November, providing hunters with their best opportunity of the year to tag a trophy buck.

Like the month of November, time and space are limited, but know that largemouth bass, crappie, and bream all have exciting November chapters in the book of Santee Cooper experiences.

Too much of a good thing only exists in negative minds. Negative people must hate November because of all this positive outdoor energy.

I’m positive of that.


Don’t sit it out:

November is a great month to catch big catfish and schooling stripers, so as long as you can stand the possiblity of dismal weather conditions and enjoy some world-class fishing at the Santee Cooper lakes.

About Terry Madewell 821 Articles
Award-winning writer and photographer Terry Madewell of Ridgeway, S.C., has been an outdoors writer for more than 30 years. He has a degree in wildlife and fisheries management and has a long career as a professional wildlife biologist/natural resources manager.

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply