Bass Fishing
November fishing at Santee Cooper can be unmatched
Don’t miss out on great fishing on the Santee Cooper lakes in November. […]
Santee Cooper SC
Catfish
Stripers and catfish are both biting strong at Santee
Santee anglers can target stripers, catfish from the same boat, at the same time. […]
Freshwater Fishing
December: It’s all about bait
As water temperatures dip in December, with frequent cold fronts blasting through South Carolina, the fishing on the Santee Cooper lakes, Marion and Moultrie, seem to defy logic and actually improves instead of slowing. […]
Crappie/Bream
December slabs: a depth perception
Guide Dave Hilton spends a lot of time catching crappie on Lake Marion, and he’s learned specific tactics to improve success and describes them in his unique style. […]
Content
Cold crappie kickoff
Cool weather and dropping water temperatures are a very good combination for December crappie on South Carolina’s Lake Marion. Anglers with a good game plan find that crappies begin to congregate into tighter areas around deep-water cover and score outstanding catches. […]
Catfish
Double dipping for stripers, cats
Veteran guide Dave Hilton from Ridgeville, S.C., has long cherished the opportunity to catch multiple species of fish at Santee Cooper. During November, the striper and catfish action is exceptional on Lake Marion and Lake Moultrie, so Hilton set out to learn how to double-dip. […]
Bass Fishing
New Santee striper regs are popular
The new striper regulations implemented on the Santee Cooper lakes this past June have received rave reviews from fishermen, guides and landing operators around Lake Marion and Lake Moultrie. This has created a lot of optimism for the striper fishing season that reopens Oct. 1. […]
Catfish
Trophy cats: a biological perspective
Chad Holbrook, a fisheries biologist for the S.C. Department of Natural Resources who oversees the Santee Cooper lakes, said biologists use winter gill-net sampling to assess blue catfish populations and, the data shows increasing catch rates from 2016 through 2018. […]
Catfish
A long-time trophy fishery
A 58-pound channel catfish was caught from Lake Moultrie in 1964, setting state and world records that still stand today. While the Santee Cooper lakes provide excellent fishing for numbers of channel catfish, the sizes are no longer extreme and are not typically considered trophy size, even for channel catfish. […]
Crappie/Bream
VIDEO – How to catch crappie in thick grass beds
For many anglers, fishing for crappie is an open water game. And whether they look for deep holes or shallow water with sunken brushpiles or stumps, you’ll find many anglers watching their electronics closely for any sign of fish or submerged debris that could be hiding the fish. It’s a great way to put crappie in the boat, but it’s not the only way. […]
Alligator
Upstate hunters kill 1052-pound gator at Santee
On South Carolina’s opening day of the 2018 alligator hunting season, Daniel, Jennifer, and Justin Cunningham, along with Rutt and Candice Iusti left Santee empty-handed and headed back to the upstate after a long but fruitless encounter with a big gator. But they went back this past weekend and filled their tag with a 13-foot, 6-inch beast that weighed 1052 pounds. […]
Catfish
The cats’ meow
Anglers from throughout the Carolinas make an annual trek to the Santee Cooper lakes in search of trophy catfish, and these enormous cats make it worth the trouble with explosive bites and drag-screaming surges. […]