It feels good getting back into Bassmaster Elite Series competition, and I’m really looking forward to a double shot of South Carolina fishing. I think Lake Murray and Santee-Cooper will be great events, and the diversity between the two fisheries should keep everyone on their toes.
I think the blueback herring stuff at Murray kinda sets up like the gizzard shad deal on my home waters of Lake Fork. I like that type of fishing, but I’m not going to spend much time chasing herring. I’m going to do some other stuff too.
And that’s the key with these herring lakes; you just can’t get married to one spot. You can’t expect the winning fish to stay on the same place for four days. The wind could change and those herring could leave, so you gotta roll out when the time is right.
I like the change of scenery we’ll experience between these two lakes. At Murray, you can have 30 rods out, and at Santee you probably have five rods out.
I’ve never been to Murray, but I think I’ll like it a little more than Santee because it has a little bit of everything. You can chase the herring, you can bed fish, you can fish docks, you can go up the river.
It’s all power fishing on Murray, and you can do whatever you want. I wouldn’t say Santee is one dimensional, but it’s mostly cypress trees and grass. Murray is just a little more wide open.
On Santee, the upper lake (Marion) will probably see the most fishing pressure. I’ve never been in the lower lake (Moultrie), but I think this is time the lower lake will play more.
I say that because we’ll be at Santee about a month later than we were last year, so the fish will be farther along. I think with the timing of the shad spawn and the bass spawn, that lower lake will play a little more this time.
Since we’ve been to Santee a few times, I think you’ll see more people in Moultrie. I think everybody has started learning a little bit more and venturing a little bit farther down to the end of that lower lake. Whereas, in the past, most anglers have been on a time crunch to learn the upper lake.
As far as the schedule, I think we’re hitting Murray at a good time for the herring spawn and some bass spawning. Santee-Cooper is going to be a little bit different this time around. It’s still going to be good, but we’re going to have a lot more postspawn bass and more of a shad spawn.
The good thing about both of these lakes is they both have the potential to produce Century Club weights. Anytime you go to Santee-Cooper, you definitely have this potential. Based on the way Lake Murray has fished this year, you can’t say this one doesn’t have similar potential.
I think the key to maximizing the potential on both of these lakes is pretty straightforward: You always have to have a game plan, but it’s no different from the game plan to win on a stingy fishery like the Sabine River. The size just comes with trying to catch the most weight that I can catch.
You can bet that’s gonna be my focus.
