Find the bait, find the fish
The key to wintertime striper fishing on Lake Hartwell is knowing where the bait is holding, and thus finding the fish.
This is why when the water temperature is in the 50s, Rick Cain of Lady Blue Adventures fishes three to five days a week looking for fish.
“You can’t sit on the couch and come out and expect to find fish. You have to do your homework on where the bait and fish are holding. You have to go out and find the fish,” Cain said.
Cain fishes year-round for stripers and uses various techniques for these fish. In the winter months, he will troll Alabama rigs or A-rigs that he makes and that he named Ricmitiser, the larger ½-ounce rig, and Mini-Rics, the smaller ¼-ounce version.
These rigs have five separate arms with a jighead and swimbait attached to each arm. The rigs simulate a school of baitfish, and it is not unusual to catch more than one fish at a time on the rigs.
Cain believes in trolling during the winter months because the fish are lethargic. So they will respond to a reaction lure best.
“The stripers have to have something that gets their attention and go after the lure,” he said.
In January, the bait and the stripers have left from the deep waters near the Hartwell Dam and will start moving up the lake into the mouth of the rivers. Then as the water warms up, they will start moving up the rivers and into the creeks.
Skim the treetops
Cain said the bait usually suspends in water between 20 to 30 feet deep. The stripers will hang off the edge of the banks in 50 to 60 feet of water. They will suspend in the trees, or right above trees, where the shad are situated. The idea is to get the rigs to run right above the trees, but not to get hung up in them.
Using his depth finder, Cain finds which river or creek is holding the bait and stripers, then he will put out two rods with lead core lines and troll the Mini-Rics off the stern. He runs two other rods with fluorocarbon line off each side of the boat with the larger Ricmitiser rigs.
The rods are 7-foot medium heavy with stainless steel guides on the lead core rods. Cain said that if you use regular ceramic guides on the lead core rods, the lead core will cut into the guides. The side rods are also medium heavy rods with fluorocarbon line. All the reels are LW50s with line counters.
The lead core line is 27-pound test with a 40-foot fluorocarbon leader. The rigs run 6 feet per color. Cain will generally let out four colors of line on the mini rigs. The rigs will run approximately 24 feet deep. But he will adjust that, depending on how deep the fish are running that day.
The side rods are spooled with 20-pound fluorocarbon line. Using the counter on the reel, Cain lets out approximately 80 feet of line that runs the ¼-ounce rigs from 12 to 15 feet deep. Sometimes Cain adds a glass bead and a 1-ounce barrel weight above the rig to make it run a little deeper.
Running between 2.7 and 3 miles-per-hour, the rod holders must be heavy duty to hold the rods in place while trolling. The clickers are engaged on the reels, and the drags are then set so that it takes a good pull to get them to go off. Cain constantly watches the rod tips and listens for any kind of hit or bump.
To get started, Cain takes the rigs out of the package and spreads the arms out. Then on the rod with fluorocarbon line, he ties on a clasp swivel and attaches the rigs. When fishing the lead core lines, he uses a double omni knot to attach the lead core line to the fluorocarbon leader, then ties a clinch knot from the leader to a clasp swivel and attaches the rigs.
The rigs consist of five arms and 3-inch swimbaits in blueback herring colors. The rigs are two different sizes, small and medium paddletail swimbaits, and the heads are ¼ or ½ ounce. Cain runs different color patterns on each rod. The color patterns are in various shades of green, red and white, and chartreuse and orange.
Find the right depth
The bait color and depth the fish are holding will determine what rod the fish will hit. Cain said that he tends to catch smaller fish since the little ones will hit first. That’s because they are sitting under the bait. The trick is to get the rigs down deeper for the big ones to bite.
During the day, the stripers tend to move deeper as the water warms up because the bait has dropped deeper. So generally, the stripers will hit the rods with the deeper running rigs. But dropping the rigs down deeper can get the rigs hung in the trees. If the rigs get hung up, Cain gets on the opposite side of the tree and lets a little slack in the line. Then he bounces the rod, and hopefully frees the rig.
When going over a school of stripers, it is not unusual for three or four rods to go off at the same time. When this happens, the stripers all run about the same size. Sometimes the stripers hit and miss, but come back and hit again.
After hooking a striper, Cain suggests using a steady and constant retrieve, and not pulling too hard. That could make a hole in the striper’s mouth, and it will get away. Also, make sure you never let slack in the line, which can also result in the fish getting free.
It can get messy
The problem with trolling four rods is that sometimes you can get into a mess with lines getting tangled. Tangled lines can happen when making hard turns or getting hung in the trees. Once the lines get tangled, the only thing left to do is stop, untangle or cut the lines, and then start over.
During the winter months, anglers not only have to contend with rain and cold, but fog can also be a real problem.
Cain said, “It can be difficult to know where you are. You have to depend on your GPS system. You also have to be aware of other boats in the area.”
He is always watching for birds diving. This indicates that they are feeding on blueback herring, which are schooling on top. He always has a rod with a topwater lure ready if the stripers start hitting on the surface.
Catching stripers in the winter includes fishing different depths, different sizes and weights of the rigs, and different color patterns on the rigs.
“You have to go out and find out where the bait and the fish are holding before you can catch them,” Cain said.
To keep up with the stripers on Lake Hartwell, contact Cain at 864-569-9974, or ladyblueadventures.net.
The Great Lake of the South
Lake Hartwell is often referred to as “the Great Lake of the South” and is one of the southeast’s largest public recreational lakes. It was built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 1955 and 1963, and the lake borders South Carolina and Georgia. It is made up of the Savannah, Tugaloo, and Seneca Rivers and includes 56,000 acres of water with 962 miles of shoreline.
Georgia and South Carolina’s Departments of Natural Resources have a reciprocal license agreement. Residents in both states can fish anywhere on Lake Hartwell or its tailwaters with a license from either state.
On Lake Hartwell, it is unlawful to possess more than 10 striped bass or hybrid bass or a combination of those a day, and only three may be over 26 inches in total length.
The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources’ stocking program annually produces between nine and 12 million fish that are released into public waterways. The striped bass fingerlings stocked into Lake Hartwell are around 1.5 to 2 inches long, and these fish can be expected to reach a catchable size in two to three years. All of the striped bass stocked in Hartwell are the Savannah River Strain, which is a genetically distinct strain that originated in the Savannah River drainage.
The largest striped bass caught on Hartwell weighed 59 pounds, 8 ounces on Feb. 3, 2002 by Georgia angler Terry McConnell.
The Corps operates nine campgrounds, 15 major day-use areas, and numerous other lake access areas located around the lake. For more information, contact Lake Hartwell’s Visitor Information Center at (803)225-3832 or visit the Hartwell Alliance website at MyLakeHartwell.org.
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