Expert local angler expects great fishing until June’s full moon
The bream fishing on Lake Wateree has reached a fever pitch with the bed-fishing peaking right now. Big, purple male bream are being caught in limit numbers in short order.
Angler Chuck Porter has been catching a lot of fish on Lake Wateree recently, but he said the bream fishing is about as good as it can get right now.
“The key to catching fish off the beds right now and for a while after the full moon – and it will happen again in June around the full moon – is to keep moving and looking,” Porter said. “The big male bream at Lake Wateree are quality fish and are often overlooked by many anglers. But it’s a great lake for newcomers to fish, because all you need is a couple of buckets of crickets, a small spinning rig or bream buster and a little patience.”
Porter said the bream will often bed in the same areas every year, and he’s learned where a lot of those are. But he still searches for new beds the same way a first time anglers would at Lake Wateree.
“I’ll just get in the boat and ease along the shoreline, “he said. “I like a grassy bank with some rocks and occasionally downed log. When using a spinning rig, I’ll usually start about two feet deep with the small float and cast along the edgelines. I may adjust the depth depending on the shoreline. I look primarily for sand or gravel bottom and usually find the big concentration of beds in small pockets or coves.
“The key is when I catch a big male bedding bream, I’ll ensure I stay off the bed, drop a small anchor to hold the boat in place and start working that specific area. Often, I can catch a limit from just a single place. Sometimes I’ll have to move along and find another place or two, but it’s not hard to catch a limit of quality bream at Lake Wateree right now.”
Porter added that even when the bream are not bedding, it’s still simply a matter of working along a shoreline that drops from shallow water into four or five feet and fish two to four feet deep using crickets or worms.
“There are some shellcrackers in the lake that get pretty big, so sometimes I use worms as bait,” he said, “but the fastest action will be on crickets. When the fish are not bedding, I’ll have to cull more fish and fish a little longer, but it’s still no problem for the next several weeks to catch a limit of big male bream – or two or three limits – depending on how many fishermen are in the boat. Now is the time to enjoy this great fishing. It’s a fishery that’s passed over by too many fishermen.”
