Freshwater Fishing Trends - Feb. 9

Striper Fishing trends courtesy www.SCFishingReport.com. Check the site for recent updates and detailed reports.

Mountains Area

Lake Jocassee: (unchanged from Feb. 2)

Trout: Fair. Captain Steve Pietrykowski reports the trout are eating a little of everything. Live Shiners always seems to work, but small spoons and rapalas are working well. Fishing the surface down to 50 feet seems to be the best. There has been a good concentration of bait up the rivers, but fish have been caught spread out through the lake.

Lake Keowee:

Largemouth Bass: Good, doodling plastic worms, jigging spoons and drop-shotting lures on the bottom 30 to 50 feet down.
Crappie: Fair. Try small minnows and jigs in 10 to 15 feet of water around brush piles and bridge pilings.
Catfish: Good, using nightcrawlers and cut bait. Bream: Slow. Try red-worms around brush piles and around stumps.

Lake Hartwell:

Largemouth Bass: Fair, using buzzbaits and planer boards to get bait close to shore. Also try deep-running crankbaits.
Crappie: Fair, using medium minnows in about 10 feet of water.
Catfish: Good, using shrimp and chicken livers, cut herring, large shiners, and nightcrawlers on the bottom. Bream: Good, using red worms around brush piles.

Piedmont Area

Lake Russell:

Largemouth Bass: Slow. Try casting deepwater crankbaits. Yellow Perch: Slow. Try fishing minnows deep.
Striped and Hybrid Bass: Fair. Try early morning with bucktails, cut, live herring and jigs especially when water is running below dam.
White Bass: Poor. Try bucktails, spinners and live bait below dam. Crappie: Fair. Try using minnows and jigs around brush piles and bridges.
Catfish: Fair, using cut bait on the bottom.
Bream: Slow. Try fishing deep with crickets or live worms.

Lake Thurmond:

Largemouth Bass: Fair. Try casting plastic worms and Cleos.
Striped and Hybrid Bass: Fair, using Roadrunners, Mr. Champ spoons or deep-running Rebels. Crappie: Slow. Try around docks using jigs and minnows.
Catfish: Fair, using cut bait, nightcrawlers and livers on the bottom.
Bream: Fair, using earthworms around the banks.

Lake Wylie: (unchanged from Feb. 2)

White perch: Very good. Look for large schools in 18 to 24 feet, and fish live minnows vertically or small spoons.
Crappie: Fair. Look in 18 to 20 feet over brush. Fish with small minnows or jigs.
Largemouth Bass: Fair. Fishing with reaction type baits like crankbaits and jerkbaits is slow, but shaky head worms or other soft plastics fished slowly against boat docks are producing. Catfish: Fair, Best fishing is coming work deep water along river channels and ledges. Use cut bait, including shad, perch, and herring.

Midlands Area

Lake Greenwood:

Largemouth Bass: Fair. Try using crankbaits off main points or jigging around brush piles and deep holes.
Stripers: Fair, using live bait, herring or shad 20 to 25 feet deep. White Perch: Fair, jigging bucktails and berry spoons 15-20 feet deep.
Crappie: Fair, using minnows and mini jigs in black and chartreuse over brush in 10 to 20 feet of water.
Catfish: Fair, using cut bait and worms on the bottom.
Bream: Poor. Try using crickets and red worms.

Lake Monticello: (unchanged from Feb. 2)

Catfish: Fair. Anchoring on main lake humps and points with steep ledges is most effective for putting big blue catfish in the boat; being patient and staying in one spot for a while can really pay off. Cut gizzard shad, big threadfin shad, and white perch seem to be the best baits.

Lake Wateree: (unchanged from Feb. 2)

Catfish: Good. Look for schools of bait before anchoring or beginning a drift.
Crappie: Fair. Best fishing is coming drifting or trolling in 14 to 15 feet. The most popular colors have been John Deere (yellow and green), black and blue, and big minnows fished on gold, but not red, hooks.
Striped Bass: Fair. Striped bass fishing has slowed considerably in the last couple of weeks although live shiners or herring in the lower part of the lake will still produce. Look for schools of bait in the Colonel's Creek area.
Largemouth Bass: Slow. Try finesse fishing very slowly with soft plastics, or slow roll spinnerbaits along the bottom.

Lake Murray:

Largemouth Bass: Fair. Try using Texas and Carolina rig finesse baits with a shaky jig head on the edge of flooded grass and broom straw. Use spinner baits in the shallows, pig and jig around brush at 8 to 12 feet.
Crappie: Fair, using jigs and small tuffies trolling the creek runs, at 4 to 15 feet, and in the upper part of the lake around the confluence of the little and big Saluda rivers and Camp Barstow. Try medium minnows around brush piles, docks and around bridge pilings, at 6 to 25 feet.
Catfish: Fair, using cut herring and nightcrawlers on bottom.
Bream: Fair. Fish with redworms, baby nightcrawlers and crickets in 3 to 12 feet of water.
Shellcrackers: Good, using redworms and baby nightcrawlers in 4 to 15 feet around a flooded grass edge, rocks, stumps and other structure.

Santee Cooper System (unchanged from Feb. 2)

Blue catfish: Improving. Captain Jim Glenn reports the catches in terms of numbers have been improving recently. Blue cats have been caught in various depths fairly consistently. Depths from a few feet to 55 feet have produced fish. Targeting blue cats in and around big schools of bait fish in deep water remains a fairly consistent strategy for winter. Lake Marion and Lake Moultrie are very similar right now with approaches to fishing for blue cats.
Striped Bass: Fair. Captain Jim Glenn reports that both lakes continue to produce lots of sub legal stripers. Stripers can still be seen schooling in both lakes, but not as often as in past weeks. Shad may not be as likely to come to the surface as often as they would in warmer water when being chased by stripers. Fishing in and around dense schools of bait with live bait or spoons and jigs and trolling are all effective right now. Some folks will use large shiners drifted either under a float or simply suspended under the boat with a sinker and swiveled leader. Stripers will be scattered in various depths depending on where they can find bait. Some striper fishermen have caught numbers of stripers in a few feet of water if bait is present in the area.