Hartwell spitting out good stripers, hybrids

Spartanburg man lands 25-pounder

Neil Culbreath wasn’t expecting much when he left his home in Spartanburg this past Tuesday morning, heading for Lake Hartwell.

The sky was spitting snow in Spartanburg, but by the time Culbreath and a friend got to Anderson, the snow had stopped and the weather as partly cloudy.

It didn’t take long for Culbreath to make it a worthwhile trip, as he hooked up almost immediately with a 25-pound striper – the first of 10 stripers and hybrids the two fishermen caught that day.

“It was the first fish I caught, at the first place we stopped,” said Culbreath, a former tournament striper fisherman. “We went into Coneross Creek, looking for schooling fish, but the birds were just picking around. I put out a downrod with a jumbo shiner, and we started jigging a little, when he hit the shiner.”

The day was the last in a series of great trips Culbreath has had to Hartwell. In late December, before he caught pneumonia that put him out of action, he had 43-, 55- and 27-fish days. Last Sunday, he landed 13 stripers and hybrids.

“I think there was a little shad kill sometime last week,” said Culbreath, who is on the pro staff of Costa Del Mar sunglasses, Eagle Claw hooks and Terry’s Lures of Kings Mountain, N.C. “I don’t think it was a big kill, but there were birds around, diving at the surface.”

Culbreath said the fishing has actually been very good on Hartwell in the past month or so. The lake level has risen around four feet, but Culbreath said the extremely low water hasn’t hurt fishing.

“With the water being down, fishing, I’m not so sure it hasn’t been better,” he said.

Of the 11 fish that came over the gunwales of his boat on Tuesday, a handful were chunky, 5- and 6-pound hybrids. The fish hit jumbo shiners. Some of the other stripers caught were on bucktails and a Terry’s Sweetheart Spoon.

“That big fish was a surprise, especially the way it was snowing when we left home,” he said. “By the time we got to Anderson, there wasn’t any snow in sight, and by the middle of the morning, the weather had cleared off.”