The choice between numbers and size is an easy one for Mark Crawford when he’s targeting big fish in a striped bass tournament. While fish 20 pounds or larger are common on his day-to-day guide trips, Crawford said the “big ones” seem to prefer the upper end of the lake in May.
“When the water is running out of Lake Russell, it creates current, and that current will eddy when it hits he mouth of Russell Creek,” he said. “It’s a well-known big-fish spot.”
To fish the area, Crawford pulls free lines, but he may swap his normal live blueback herring for a dollar-bill sized or better gizzard shad. To match the bait, he’ll also go up from a 3/0 to a 6/0 Octopus hook.
“The water is about 30 feet deep in the channel and it really shallows up to six to eight feet on the edge of the channel,” he said. “The channel edge is lined with timber. I’ll pull that big gizzard right along the edge of the drop; sometimes it may be over six feet, and sometimes it may swing out over 30 feet.”
A big fish can hide anywhere along the channel and frequently run up on the shallow flats to feed. The shallow water is home to spawning gizzard shad, and occasionally, the current will push one over the edge. Big stripers will slowly cruise the edge, and a shad that strays too far makes for an easy meal.
“It’s not a limit-of-fish outing,” said Crawford. “You fish all day for two or three bites, but those fish are going to be from bragging-size fish.”
Both Crawford and William Sasser also offer trophy trips to the upper reservoir at Lake Russell, where South Carolina recently enacted a law limiting the daily creel of stripers to two per day, including only one exceeding 34 inches in length.
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