9/27/07
Fishing good for catfish and largemouth bass
By Terry Madewell

Even a little bit of rain should help the fishing, so any amount of rain we’ve got is welcome. What’s needed more to get the lake levels up is a good soaking rain or two upstream. There are issues at several launching ramps. Wherever you launch the boat, be careful with the low water situation. It can create big problems with boat trailers at times.

If you can get in the water safely, the catfish action is very good. Additionally the largemouth bass have perked up and there is some scattered striper schooling action.

Even though shrimping season opened weekend before last, I can’t tell you much about what’s happened yet, at least in terms of anything positive on a large scale.

Catfish are being caught on a variety of baits. One angler is using chicken soaked in WD-40 to make excellent catches on a variety of catfish species. In addition, cut bait is working on the blue catfish and live bait on the flatheads. The channel catfish are being taken on stink baits, worms and cut bait.

Several big flatheads and a few good-sized blue catfish have been taken recently.

The largemouth bass action is good on a variety of lures right now. Some schooling action is being reported with bass schooling in shallow water throughout the lake. However the best schooling activity has been reported in the upper half of the lake. Good fishing around shallow water cover has been reported as well. Plastic worms are producing some quality largemouth right now, with the Texas rig in pumpkinseed color working particularly well around shallow water woody cover. The Carolina rig, in a green/chartreuse worm pattern, is producing good results on drops and ledges.

The crappie fishing action has begun to improve and a few good catches have been made recently in water six-to-fifteen-feet deep. The fish are beginning to scatter a bit with the cooling temperatures. Hoepfully the shallow water action will perk up in the next couple of weeks with the cooler water temperatures.

Striper action is also improving but is still scattered in both lakes with a few good catches made. Some schooling action is still being reported but nothing consistent or predictable is being reported.

Along the coast, there have been some excellent results on shrimping. The shrimp seem to be abundant and are averaging very good size, especially for this early in the season. Good fishing for trout, redfish, sheepshead and flounder continues in the inshore areas. The redfish are being taken on live bait and trout are being taken on green grubs. Trolling live bait such as mudminnows has been effective for flounder. Sheepsheads are still being taken around the rock jetties near Georgetown and Charleston Harbor on fiddler crabs.