News Release
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | Largemouth Bass: Good, casting Carolina-rigged worms, Gary Yamamoto purple watermelon plastic worms and jerk baits with slow retrieve. |
| Trout: Fair, trolling from near surface to 40 feet with Bad Creek spoons, Sutton, Doctor and Apex spoons. Also try drifting large minnows from surface to 40 feet of water and trolling minnows. |
| Smallmouth Bass: Fair. Casting Yozuri plugs deep around rocky points and drifting minnows around rocky points. Crappie: Poor. Try small minnows and jigs around brush piles. |
| Catfish: Good. Try nightcrawlers or cut bait on bottom. |
| Bream: Excellent. Try redworms and popping bugs around banks and brush. Bream fishing has improved with warmer spring weather. |
Lake Keowee:
| Largemouth Bass: Good, fishing with medium to jumbo minnows on bottom and free lining near surface to 20 feet deep. Also doodling with drop-shot rigs in 15 to 30 feet of water. Bass are hitting topwater plugs. Good catches in the mid-lake area, 8 to 12 feet with jerkbaits and crankbaits. |
| Crappie: Fair, using small minnows and jigs in 10 to 15 feet of water around brush piles and bridge pilings. |
| Catfish: Good, using minnows, nightcrawlers and cut bait on the bottom. Many catfish being caught in baskets. |
| Bream: Good. Try using redworms and crickets around brush piles, stumps and bridge pilings. |
Lake Hartwell:
| Largemouth Bass: Good. Try casting spinnerbaits and crankbaits off points and jigs around structure. Good catches with live large minnows, white flukes and topwater plugs. |
| Striped and Hybrid Bass: Excellent, free-lining live herring and large minnows and jigging in about 38 feet of water. Good catches around the dam with live herring at 15 to 20 feet. |
| Crappie: Good. Try umbrella crappie rigs, also using small and medium minnows and small crappie jigs over brush and structure. |
| Catfish: Good, using cut herring, large shiners and nightcrawlers. |
| Bream: Fair. Try using redworms and crickets under boat docks and bridges. |
Piedmont Area
Lake Russell:
| Largemouth Bass: Good, casting spinnerbaits, plastic worms and lizards around flats and points. |
| Yellow Perch: Fair, fishing deep with medium minnows and jigging spoons. |
| Striped and Hybrid Bass: Good, with bucktails, cut and live herring and jigs below the dam when water is running. |
| White Bass: Good, using bucktails, spinners and live bait below the dam when water is running. |
| Crappie: Good, using minnows and jigs around brush piles and bridge pilings. Fish are moving to shallow water with catches at 5 to 7 feet. |
| Catfish: Good, using cut bait and nightcrawlers on the bottom. |
| Bream: Good. Try using crickets and earthworms around bridge pilings and structure. |
Lake Thurmond:
| Largemouth Bass: Fair. Try casting plastic worms, nightcrawlers and redworms. |
| Striped and Hybrid Bass: Good, using large minnows and lures. Sidewinder spoons, and 1/3 and 2/5 ounce Cleos. Also, Berry spoons, KastMasters and Hopkins spoons. Hybrids also being caught on large minnows. |
| Crappie: Fair, using small minnows and black and chartreuse with pepper colored and chartreuse and green colored mini-jigs around deep brush tops mini-jigs black, Wobbly-eye jigs, Crappie Thunder, Beetlespins and Roadrunners. |
| Catfish: Good, using cut bait and nightcrawlers fishing on the bottom. Good catches around structure and bridge pilings. |
| Bream and Shellcrackers: Excellent. Try using earthworms around banks and brush. |
Lake Wylie:
| Largemouth Bass: Good, casting spinnerbaits and medium-running crankbaits along points close to the bottom. |
| Striped Bass: Good, using spoons and bucktails behind Lake Wylie dam. |
| White Bass: Good, below the dam casting smaller bucktails and spoons. |
| Crappie: Good, using small minnows and jigs around docks, piers and brush tops in 5 to 10 of water. |
| Catfish: Good, fishing on the bottom with a variety of baits. |
| Shellcrackers: Good. Try using redworms and crickets on the bottom. |
| Bream: Excellent. Try using earthworms and crickets around the banks. |
Midlands Area
Lake Greenwood:
| Largemouth Bass: Good, using spinnerbaits and chatterbaits around structure at 2 to 6 feet, with some bass moving into deeper water, top water plugs only in lake. Good catches reported on floating worms around docks and sea walls in shallow water. |
| Stripers: Excellent, behind the dam using Bombers, Charlie plugs, and flukes. Also fair catches in lower lake with bucktails, live baits and Berry spoons. Good catches around bird activity over the water. |
| White Bass and White Perch: Fair, Try casting and jigging Berry Spoons. Also, good catches up the Saluda River. |
| Crappie: Good, using small to medium minnows, mini jigs and slider jigs around brush in 15-20 ft of water. Crappie starting to move into deeper water. Good catches below the dam using minnows. |
| Catfish: Good. Try using redworms in 6 to 8 feet of water. |
| Bream: Excellent, with redworms and crickets along shoreline structure and docks in 4 to 6 feet of water. |
Lake Wateree:
| Largemouth Bass: Good, casting spinnerbaits and shallow-running crankbaits. |
| Striped Bass: Good, using cut shad, live shad and bucktails at the Cedar Creek Dam. White Perch: Fair, casting and jigging Twister-tail grubs and live minnows. |
| Crappie: Good, in river channels and mouths of creeks trolling Wow grubs, Sliders, Kalin’s grubs. Good catches jigging around piers. |
| Catfish: Good, using earthworms, nightcrawlers, shrimp, small pieces of cut bait and live shad. |
| Bream and Shellcrackers: Good. Try crickets, worms and artificial baits fished around piers, structure and brush. |
Lake Murray:
| Largemouth Bass: Good. Bass are hitting spinner baits in the shallows and shaky head artificial worms around brush and shallows using watermelon red, candy or green pumpkin color. |
| Striped Bass: Good catches freelining herring in mid-lake. When schooling use striper delights and pencil poppers. Use live freelining or cut bait on down rods. |
| Crappie: Fair. Use jigs, small tuffies trolling the creek runs, at 8 to 20 feet. Cast jigs and minnows to the bank. Also fish brush piles at 15 to 20 feet. |
| White Perch: Good, jigging Flex-it spoons, redworms and tuffies 15 to 30 feet. |
| Catfish: Excellent. In 2 to 8 feet of water use cut herring and nightcrawlers. |
| Bream: Very Good. Fish with redworms, crickets in 3 to 8 feet of water. Look for schooling fish. |
| Shellcrackers: Good, using redworms and small nightcrawlers. Drop
baits around sandy shell beds around points and islands at 4 to 15 feet.
Look for schooling fish. |
Santee Cooper System
Lake Marion:
| Largemouth Bass: Good, using artificial worms, Carolina rigs and bucktails fishing along the banks and points, especially in the morning. |
| Striped Bass: Slow, using live shiners with down rods in 25 feet of water and trolling with red-head Rebels. Some schooling reported and catches with top water plugs. |
| White Perch: Slow. Try jigging off the bottom with Hopkins spoons. |
| Crappie: Good. Try using small and medium minnows over deep brush piles, bridge pilings and piers. |
| Catfish: Excellent, using cut bait, cut shad, herring and shiners off the bottom in deep water. |
| Good catches in shallow water at night. |
| Bream and Shellcrackers: Excellent. Good sized fish being caught using redworms and crickets in 4 to 6 feet of water and moving shallow. |
Lake Moultrie:
| Largemouth Bass: Good. Try casting spinnerbaits, plastic worms and lizards along docks and structure. Also, casting Rattletraps and Rapala lures around the Pinopolis point and the old hatchery. |
| Striped Bass: Fair. Some catches in the early morning and at night fishing with live herring 40 feet deep around the power plant and the Pinopolis Dam. Also some catches trolling with Stretch-25s. |
| Crappie: Fair, using crickets, small to medium minnows and Beetlespins around fish attraction areas and brush piles. |
| Catfish: Good, using cut herring, menhaden if available, chicken livers and shiners 10 to 20 feet deep near the bottom along dike edges and around the dam. |
| Bream: Good, using crickets and red worms around fish attraction areas and crappie beds. |
| Shellcrackers: Good. Try crickets and red worms along the banks along river runs and points. |
REPORTERS: The S.C. Department of Natural Resources appreciates the
cooperation of fishing trend reporters for South Carolina's major lakes:
Jocassee - Jocassee Outdoor
Center; Keowee - Fishing Hole; Hartwell - Lake Hartwell Fishing and
Marine; Russell - Tony's Bait and
Tackle; Thurmond - Bladon's; Wylie - Catawba Tackle; Greenwood -
Sportsman's Friend; Wateree -
Wateree Marina; Murray -
Dooley's Sport Shop, Lake World; Marion -
Randolph's Landing; and
Moultrie - Atkins Boat Landing - Mr. David Sweat.
For South Carolina freshwater fish regulations:
http://www.dnr.sc.gov/regs/pdf/freshfishing.pdf
