4/5/07

Fishing still excellent for bass
By Terry Madewell

There’s not a lot of change in the fishing news from last week. The largemouth bass fishing is still excellent and the bream and shellcracker fishing is also very good. With the full moon this week we should see excellent fishing success.

The news of good catches of big crappie is getting better with much more consistent reports right now. Plus there have been some striper caught as well as a lot of big catfish.
If it sounds like spring fishing is here … it is.

We’ve received information from many anglers, but bass fishing guide Inky Davis is certainly putting his clients on a lot of quality fish lately. In addition to the information from Inky, we’ve had lots of reports of outstanding catches with just about everything that’s fishable in shallow water producing good fishing action. Plastic worms, spinner baits, jigs and grub, crank baits and even top water lures are producing good action. Most of the fish are being taken in relatively shallow water, in depths ranging from the surface down to 6-8 feet of water. Plenty of big bass are being caught right now too.

Drifting minnows or trolling jigs has been lethal for slab crappie as well. The action is really much more consistent now than it was a week ago. Limit catches of big fish are being taken throughout both of the lakes right now.

Striper action is heating up too and several good catches have been reported. Success is being reported on herring and cut bait. Look for this to steadily improve as water conditions get better.

The catfish action is excellent right now in the lake and in the Wateree and Congaree rivers. The blue catfish action is best using herring and shad. The channel catfish are being taken on smaller cut bait and night crawlers have produced some good catches as well. Live bait is best for the big flatheads and a few big fish have been taken recently.

The shellcracker and bream fishing is very good and improving. Crickets have been best for the bream and worms for the shellcracker. Both species have begun to really improve in the past week.

Fishing along the South Carolina coast continues to be excellent for bottom fishing for black sea bass offshore. Inshore, the action on redfish using mud minnows as bait has been good.