3/20/08
Fishing excellent for crappie, bass and catfish
By Terry Madewell

The crappie action has seemed to knock the largemouth out of the top spot in the fish production area over the past week or so. While the largemouth bass fishing is certainly still excellent, a lot of anglers have caught big numbers of large crappie. The best news is that a lot of the crappie have been taken from water less than eight feet deep. Some of the fish have been quite shallow and odds are good the fish will continue to move to the shallows over the next couple of weeks.

The largemouth bass fishermen are still out in big numbers and the results have remained excellent. Good catches of big bass have been reported by several anglers. The productive lures include most lures that work in shallow water, with worms, spinner baits, crank baits all producing good results. Whatever your personal bass fishing lure of choice is, it will probably catch fish right now.

In addition, the catfish action is still very good and is getting better. Some big blue catfish are being caught in both lakes right now.

Several big fish in the 4-6 pound class have been reported caught in the lakes as well as in some local ponds. We’re on the March full moon, so big sows may be moving to the shallow water to spawn. This is historically an excellent time to hook a hawg largemouth. Go now if you’re interested in a trophy. There are reports of good numbers of largemouth also being caught throughout lakes Marion and Moultrie.

The crappie are being caught in different depths throughout the lakes based on various reports. Many slab-sized fish have made their move to the shallows so work the shallow, visible cover wherever you can find it. Both minnows and jigs are producing good results.

The catfish action is best in water from 8-24 feet deep but some action is still occurring in shallow water, especially for blue catfish. The blue catfish action seems to be best using herring, cut perch and shad as bait. For channel catfish, night crawlers have produced some good catches. Live bait is the best bet for big flatheads.

The shellcracker fishing is fair, but we’ve only received a few reports. More news should be coming in soon as we approach the March full moon. Often we’ll get a good bit of March shellcracker bedding action … the water temperature will determine how good it will get. Some are being taken on red worms right now.

Fishing along the South Carolina coast continues to be good for redfish using mud minnows as bait. In addition, good reports of bottom fishing continue to be reported on black sea bass, snapper and grouper further offshore.