Capt. Dave Broome of Dave Broome’s Guide Service will wait a little while before he starts fishing for crappie and bream, and the way he’s been catching catfish, who can blame him?
Broome has worked on the big blue cats in Santee Cooper’s Lake Marion for the past week, drifting the ledges and channel drops for up to two-dozen fish per day.
“Boy, the catfish have been doing real good,” said Broome (803-492-7073). “I fished five straight days and had some really good catches. They’ve mostly been blues, but I had one day when I had three big flatheads between 20 and 30 pounds, plus an 18-pound blue. I’ll bet I had 400 pounds total.”
Broome has been drifting cut blueback herring on a standard “Santee rig” for cats – an egg sinker threaded on 30-pound test line above a barrel swivel, with a leader of about two feet of 60-pound test tied to the swivel. He uses a big circle hook on the business end of the line and a small float about midway up the leader to keep his bait just off the bottom.
“We’ve been drifting in the upper lake, fishing close to the drops – the ledges on the channel,” Broome said. “I’m not catching them in deep water, mostly on the slopes and up on the flats. I’m catching them anywhere from 12 to 18 feet deep.”
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