Winter is a great time of the year to fish in the Santee Cooper System for striped bass. This reservoir is fed by the Congaree River and is made up by two connected lakes, Marion and Moultrie. The stripers were landlocked in the lakes while on their spawning run from the ocean. The locks of the dam closed and the stripers were trapped inside. People started to catch them on the lakes and thought that the stripers wouldn’t last in fresh water. The stripers did last and they migrate along the lakes and up to the Saluda River, migrating on a smaller distance scale of what the salt water stripers do along the north east coast. The land locked population led the striped bass to be named our South Carolina State Fish.
Stripers prefer the cold water and spend the warmer months in the deep waters of lake Moultrie. As the temperature cools and the bait schools up, the stripers move up the canal to Lake Marion. In the spring, the braun female stripers swim up the Congaree river, to the Saluda river where they spawn in Columbia. Most lakes cannot support a natural reproducing striper population because the stripers have to lay their eggs in rivers with the perfect conditions. The eggs float down stream until they hatch. The fry continues to drift down stream with the yolk attached for a few more days while it feeds, and must have time to develop before reaching the lake. If the current in the river is too slow, the stiper eggs will sink to the bottom and not survive.
Cooper Jordan, Dawson Jordan, Daniel Coleman, and I launched the skiff in Lake Marion on a Saturday morning and did not ride far before stopping to bait our hooks. I was hoping we could buy live herring and shad at a bait store but they only had shiners which would have to do. We hooked the shiners in through the nose and clipped the lines behind our planer boards. The planer boards pull the lines off each side of the boat like an outrigger and I usually put 3 or 4 off of each side. A planer board jolted immediately and a striper was on the hook. I fought the fish while Dawson and Daniel baited more hooks. Another planer board jolted and Dawson took the rod. We were careful to direct the fish away from each other and landed both.
When the third fish hit, Daniel took the rod and we noticed that this was going to be larger than the others. This fish was a keeper so we packed the striper in the cooler and continued trolling. A striper has to be a minimum of 26″ to keep them on lake Marion and this fish visibly surpassed the requirements.
Cooper was at the helm steering the trolling motor. The goal is to troll as slowly as possible while still keeping the boat under control. We were trolling along one of the fingers of water off of the main lake testing different depths and speeds to find the fish.
A planer board shook in the water and I seized the rod. A striper was thrashing on he other end of the line and it was Cooper’s turn to reel it in. He said, “I’ve caught enough fish, y’all reel it in,” but I held the rod not touching the reel and he came to fight the fish.
The fifth striper to hit was even larger than our first keeper and Daniel reeled it in. Our 50qt cooler was full by 10 am and I deemed the day a success, even if we didn’t get another bite. Little did we know what was to come.
The day went on and the fishing slowed. We fished Potato Creek with little luck and ate lunch while we were trolling. You have to stay on your toes while eating lunch because the fish always knows to hit at this inconvenient time. The surprise bite never came and we enjoyed burritos and fried chicken for lunch.
As we approached the larger body of water, I heard the zing of drag pulling away from a reel and saw a planer board scooting across the surface behind a striper. I took the rod and reeled the fish towards the back of the boat while Cooper steered us ahead. The fish was close to the size of the others and since we forgot the tape measure, we had to get creative in finding the length.
This is where my training at Herald Office came in. Paper is 11 inches and so we measured the fish according to 2 1/3 sheets of paper. The fish just about broke even and so we released it in case of any error. It hurt me to put a possible keeper back in the water but seeing the big fish diving down into the the clear water was a pretty sight.
We were fishing in water that was between 20-30 feet deep and approached a steep ledge where the water is less than 10 feet. Cooper was about to turn the boat to follow the ledge when a planer board disappeared. The rod was doubled over and Daniel picked it up. Every fish that Daniel caught has been a keeper so far and this fish was promising. We continued trolling ahead until Daniel said that he was still loosing line to the fish. Cooper turned the boat keeping the striper positioned off the side and we were at a standstill, neither gaining or loosing line. Daniel was worried that the striper was wrapped around a stump but as we approached the fish, it came alive and continued to pull. I think it had the big fish in a small pond mentality until it saw the boat.
Daniel was working the striper and I stood on the bow with the net. I could see the fish swimming in front of the trolling and I felt like we were chasing a whale in Nantucket. We came close enough to scoop the fish up in the net and plop it down on the bow.
Cooper and Dawson were situating the back and Cooper turned around to see the fish. His blank expression was of disbelief that stripers in SC grew to that size. I sat in the back of the boat rearranging coolers to make room for our latest catch. We took ice from the food cooler and put the 17 lb striper in the live well with ice.
There was no room left to store fish and we made our way to the boat ramp. One of my favorite feelings is to catch enough fish that we leave while they are still biting. Trolling for stripers is a fun and exciting game. It’s not about fishing stumps and trees for bass because striper are pelagic fish and caught in the open water. There is so much surface area to cover that it helps to look up trends and to start your own book of notes, logging the details of the weather, locations, depths, bait, etc. Over time, your notes will point out patterns of fishing trends that help you to know the fish better.
Call Capt. Lawrence to plan a trip. 843-632-1749