Double up on Cooper River bluegills this month

Cooper River bluegills are big and hungry

June is a great month for bream fishing. And while most anglers think of lakes and ponds for catching these tasty panfish, rivers are also great choices. The Cooper River is full of big bluegills, and it’s far from the most-popular bream hole in South Carolina.

But TC Lloyd of Southern Angling Guide Service said anglers who don’t fish here this time of year are missing out.

“This river has some big — I mean really big — bluegills. Fighting them in the current is a load of fun. They fight like crazy. When it comes to catching big numbers of hard-fighting fish, this river is as good as any body of water in the Carolinas,” he said.

To make it even more interesting, Lloyd uses a double-hook rig, which sometimes results in a double hook-up. When fishing lakes for bream, Lloyd usually uses a cork, but he does not use one on the Cooper River.

Double rigs can produce two fish at a time

“We use a double-hook, drop-shot rig, so the weight is under the hooks,” he said, “and we bait the hooks with crickets and just bounce the weight along the bottom. It works great for these bluegills. And you’ll occasionally catch a shellcracker. And when you hook two bream at a time, it’s a crazy fight that you’ll never forget. You’ll swear you’ve got a giant catfish on the line.”

Lloyd’s rig is made up of two light-wire, No. 4 bream hooks and 10-pound line.

“I normally used 6-pound line for bream fishing. But in this river, you’ll get hung up sometimes on the bottom debris. With that 10-pound line, you can straighten out the light-wire hooks instead of breaking off. Then, you just straighten the hook with a pair of pliers, and you’re back to fishing,” he said.

Lloyd (843-307-6678) said that using electronics isn’t necessary on the Cooper, but he said it helps to locate beds quickly.

“You can get caught up watching your electronics too much, because you’ll find beds galore with the side-scanning. But a lot of times, the bream are gone off the beds for hours at a time. So you can’t rely only on what you find that way. But it is nice to know where those beds are. And if you’re not catching them right quick, move on, but come back later and those fish might be back on them with a big appetite,” he said.