2012 starts off with good fishing news
Overall fishing news is still quite exciting with striper action still going well along with some excellent catfishing news recently. In addition, because of warmer than normal air and water temperatures, the largemouth bass fishing has been better than normal for this time of the year. Usually a few nice bass can be caught early in the year, but some anglers are still catching good numbers as well as quality largemouth. The cold will come for sure, but let’s start the new year with some good fishing news.
While we did get some much needed rainfall, we still need more but the cloudy days did provide anglers great opportunities for fishing success. Cloudy days seem to bring out the best in fish biting action.
The best fishing for the catfish, particularly the blue catfish, has been to find big schools of baitfish and anchor and fan cast around the boat on the lower end of Lake Marion. When fishing on Lake Moultrie, most of the successful catfish anglers have been drift fishing, with most of the catches coming from deep water along the drops and ledges.
The blue catfish are being taken on cut bait with shad and herring being best baits, however white perch is also producing well. The flatheads are being taken on live shad, perch and shiners, along with fresh cut bait. Some good catches of channel catfish continue to be made, partly because of the less severe water temperatures, and these fish are being made using red worms, night crawlers, stink baits, minnows and small chunks of cut bait. Most of the catches are on the flats, with some of the larger fish being caught adjacent to deeper channels.
The largemouth bass action is still good, particularly around heavy cover. The fish may be in fairly shallow water but usually at this time of the year, there will be some deeper water nearby. Fishermen are slowing their lure presentations down because of the dropping water temperature. In essence, they don’t chase baits as activity as they have in the past when the water temperature was warmer. The bottom bumping “shaky head” lures continue to be very effective on the upper end of Lake Marion according to reliable reports.
Plastic worms, crank baits worked slowly and spinner baits worked around isolated patches of cover have been productive on large fish. Some bass are also being taken around the eel grass as well with slow moving lures. Some good catches are also being made in the larger creeks such as Wyboo, Potato and Taw Caw creeks as shad begin to filter into the larger creeks.
On the lower end of the lake, the fishing for stripers has been very good and the action has been best from the dam up to the Taw Caw Creek area. They are being caught on live bait drifting, as well as casting buck tails, swimming minnow lures and topwater lures early and late in the day when schooling. While a number of small stripers are being caught, some legal keeper sized stripers are being caught as well.
Fishing along the South Carolina coast continues to be extremely good for redfish and speckled trout. The redfish are being taken on artificial as well as live bait, or frozen finger mullet and trout are being taken on green grubs and live bait such as mud minnows.
