5/3/07

Fishing excellent for just about everything
By Terry Madewell

Excellent spring weather, stable water conditions and warming water translate into outstanding fishing success at Lake Marion.

The largemouth bass fishing is absolutely great right now, with lots of big fish being caught. In addition, the bream and shellcracker are bedding and some great catches are being made there as well.

The striper action is heating up and the catfish action has been excellent as well. The crappies are also still being caught in the medium depths and into deep water areas around brush piles.

There’s just no reason to not go fishing.

Some of the biggest news has been excellent fishing for the big bream and shellcracker. Worms have been the best bait if you’re exclusively fishing for shellcrackers, however crickets will produce action as well. The crickets seem to produce best on the big bream. The next few weeks should be prime time for big bream as well as shellcrackers.

Beetle spins have also produced some good bream action and will also enable you to hook a crappie or two as well.

The largemouth bass fishing is great throughout lakes Marion and Moultrie. There are many different lures and techniques that are effective right now. Floating worms, in the pink or chartreuse color, continue to produce excellent largemouth action on the Santee River.

The bass in the lakes are being caught on many different lures. The best baits include plastic worms, spinner baits, crank baits and jigs. There has been some very good action on buzz baits and other top water lures as well. Much of the action has been in the shallow water around the trees, brush and weeds in less than six feet of water.

The crappie fishing action remains good, with many of the fish back in deeper water now. However, a couple of different anglers reported catching fish around docks in 4-8 feet of water. Also look for them around brush piles and stumps along the ledges in 12-18 feet of water. Minnows and jigs are both producing very good results right now.

The catfish action remains very good in 12-20 feet of water in both lakes early in the day. Later, when the sun gets high, the best fishing is in the deeper water near the channel drops. The blue catfish action is best using herring and shad and for channel catfish night crawlers have produced some good catches. Live bait such as shad, herring, bream or white perch is best for the big flatheads.

Fishing along the coastal areas is still very good for redfish and speckled trout using mud minnows as bait. In addition, there are very good reports of bottom fishing action for black sea bass and some grouper and snapper. Some Wahoo and dolphin have also been reported caught recently.