Fishing campground of the month: Blacks Camp

Blacks Campground
Camping at Blacks Camp offers you access to great fishing on Santee Cooper, and can extend your trip without sacrificing your creature comforts.

Camping is fun, and can enhance your fishing trips

Camping can extend your fishing trips, and make them more comfortable. That’s especially true if you have a travel trailer, a fifth wheel, a motorhome, or even a pop-up camper. These are more comfortable than tents for obvious reasons.

One of the big advantages to camping this way is that you can bring as much of your own stuff with you as you’d like, without having to pack and haul luggage in an out of a hotel room or rental house. You’ve got your own pillow, a hot shower, and a bed that you’re used to sleeping in. Camping spots are also less expensive (usually) than a hotel room or other rental. You can cook your own food, which also helps keep the costs of an extended fishing trip down.

And in many areas, you can find campgrounds that put you right next to your favorite fishing hole. Blacks Camp in Cross, S.C. is one such campground. Blacks Camp also has a lodge and individual cabins for rent. But if you’ve got a camper, bring your own creature comforts along. This campground is right next door to the restaurant and lodge, and the water and boat ramp are within easy walking distance of every camping spot.

Blacks Camp
Camping at Blacks Camp will put you right where you need to be for crappie on the lower lake and the upper lake.

Blacks Camp’s campground offers access to many different species of fish

Blacks Camp (843-753-2231) is located just off the Diversion Canal that connects Santee Cooper’s upper and lower lakes, so you have easy access to whichever lake has the hottest bite. And once you set up your camper here, you’re all set, no matter how long you plan to stay. The campground has 65 sites, and all of them are full hookups, meaning every site has water, electricity, and sewer. So you don’t have to worry about taking quick showers or being stingy with water when washing dishes or preparing meals and such.

Each camp site also has room to park your fishing boat, making it easy to charge your batteries for the next day’s trip. And Blacks Camp has a place for you to clean your fish. But if you really want to spoil yourself, have Capt. Carl clean it for you. He’s one of the best on the lake, and he’ll clean it and bag it while you’re eating in the restaurant, taking a shower, or swapping fish tales with others coming off the lake.

Blacks Camp
An extended stay at Blacks Camp’s Campground will give anglers plenty of chances at Santee’s hot fall striper bite.

Cross isn’t known as a big shopping mecca, but you’ll have no problem keeping stocked on fishing essentials inside the store at Blacks Camp. They carry a full line of the finest rods, reels, terminal tackle, fishing clothing, ice, and other accessories. They even have heavy-duty anchors in stock. And if you’re worried about bait, put your mind at ease. Blacks Camp has two huge bait ponds with aeration systems that keep the baitfish lively and ready for action.

Bring your own boat, or fish with a guide out of Blacks Camp

If you’re not bringing your own boat, you can still get in as much fishing as you’d like. Numerous fishing guides keep their boats docked at Blacks Camp, and will take you fishing on either lake, for whatever species you’d like to catch. These guides have decades of experience and even though they all have their own individual fishing methods, they are all equally capable of giving you a day on the water you’ll never forget, whether you’re fishing for bream, crappie, bass, catfish, or stripers. And if you really want to get adventurous, ask about a trip through the locks to saltwater to chase redfish, speckled trout, or flounder. It’s all within reach of Blacks Camp.

Blacks Camp
Arkansas blue cats, flatheads, and channel cats are all available to anglers from Blacks Camp’s campground.

Many fishing tournaments for bass, crappie, and catfish are held throughout the year at Blacks Camp. So whether you’re fishing in one or would just like to watch anglers bring in some big fish for the weigh-in, the campground is a great place to stay.

Click here to read about the hot striper bite with Capt. Leroy Suggs out of Blacks Camp.

About Brian Cope 2726 Articles
Brian Cope is the editor of Carolina Sportsman. He has won numerous awards for his writing, photography, and videography. He is a retired Air Force combat communications technician, and has a B.A. in English Literature from the University of South Carolina. You can reach him at brianc@sportsmannetwork.com.

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply