Lake Moultrie reports

[catfishrus]

Whats biting? I might head that way one day next week...just wondering how things are doing...heading to blacks camp to take the camper down for a month or so. Water level okay? I havent been to santee in two years. Easterlins sea anchors still there? I need to pay her a visit also.

[Blackwaterkatz]

Originally Posted by catfishrus

Whats biting? I might head that way one day next week...just wondering how things are doing...heading to blacks camp to take the camper down for a month or so. Water level okay? I havent been to santee in two years. Easterlins sea anchors still there? I need to pay her a visit also.

Michael, the fish have been scattered a lot, mostly in less than 25' though, but a few larger ones are starting to show up now. July into August should improve things. I'll try to have a better report for you later.
Easterlin's is still in business: www.carolina-girl.com, and there is plenty of water; levels are as high as they've been in a long time but are starting to drop now: http://waterdata.usgs.gov/sc/nwis/uv...62,00065,72020.
Fresh cut perch and shad or herring have all been catching a lot of eating size fish, as has stink bait. The depth varies almost from day to day, but as the spawn ends maybe things will settle down.

[Capt. Ahab]

Originally Posted by catfishrus

Whats biting? I might head that way one day next week...just wondering how things are doing...heading to blacks camp to take the camper down for a month or so. Water level okay? I havent been to santee in two years. Easterlins sea anchors still there? I need to pay her a visit also.

From what I hear, Moultrie's been slow, but here's my current Lake Marion report, for whatever it's worth:

Water's been hot, staying close to 90 degrees. Level has dropped about a foot during the hot spell, but still within a couple of feet of full pool for now. Barometer's been pretty much staying steady low for a while. Big cats are well into feeding on mussels now, so if you can find a mussel bed, fish RIGHT UP AGAINST THE BANK in 2 feet of water using cut white perch or bluebacks. Feeding times have been dusk til midnight, then they turn off til pre-dawn, and then they bite again for an hour or two. Don't be afraid to throw a couple of live bream out the back of the boat either for a flathead or two. Catch bream in 15 feet of water around brushpiles, and white perch are everywhere as usual.

The diversion canal is full of 1 to 3lb dinks using stinkbait around Canal Lakes Camp too, if you want to catch a few for the live well to tailhook and throw out up here on the way up...............

If you want to go out with Ms. Penny and I, please let us know. We'd be honored.

[catfishrus]

Thanks Tommy and Captain Ahad...Im not sure which day dads talking about coming down next week. He enjoys fishing santee more than any other lake around though. We've had some good times down there catfishing over the years. We got to find something to put on them NCCATS boys come Aug....they tuff. I want to try some bigger drift socks this time....depending on the wind of coarse. My uncle has a 9 ft drift sock and I tell you that thing will open up faster than my 6fters....so I want to get at least one maybe two of the 9fters. She makes a good drift sock and I been pleased with mine.....just wished they open easier at times. We cannot afford to fish that upper lake...my dads got a heavy foot and 61 year old eyeballs...so not the place to be with those conditions. Thanks for the invite to fish with you and penny. I think we will stick to fishing the lower lake this time around....its kind of our home away from home turf.

P.S. 10/4 on that evening bite too...we will be targeting that time.

[rivercatsc]

Micheal the earlly morning and late afternoon bite has been the best for me over the past month. I have been drifting in 15ft-25ft at night and we have caught some pretty nice blues and your old favorite, FLATHEADS. Cut herring has been good but most of my bigger fish have come off of filleted perch or bream heads. I have also caught a couple nice flatheads on live shiners. You know where to look for them so youll be fine. The water is perfect full pool and sometimes above full. Easterlin drift socks are the #1 way to go hands down. Mrs Myrtle will do anything for you and will repair your old socksif they get damaged. I use the 10ft socks and I will say that 1 10fter is far better than 2 6fters. I use 2 10ft socks on the toon no matter how much wind if that wont do it go back in cause you shouldnt be out there. Good luck and I look foward to your report from down there they are always good.

[catfishrus]

Alright looks like maybe tuesday or Wednesday night for us...we going to fish a couple nights. We will be in my black/silver lund this time since hes pulling the camper. That word FLATHEADS has done turned on the light switch James... Always fun when you can find them. Im kind of looking forward to doing some side image on some old holes I know about ...just to see whats down there. I need to rob pops depth finder for some GPS cordinates for this bird. It will be interesting to see where they show up on this new Navonics chip. I never fished with a chip at santee(always used the paper maps)....at least a working one. I will say I was amazed at what I learned when they added tillery and badin to these 2009 chips from my old GPS cordinates. It all made sense why I caught fish where I did. Hope that holds true for santee...we will see. Thanks for the info fellows.

[Blackwaterkatz]

Originally Posted by catfishrus

Im kind of looking forward to doing some side image on some old holes I know about ...just to see whats down there. I need to rob pops depth finder for some GPS cordinates for this bird.

Don't bother, Michael; I've already done the side imaging on all your favorites, and it isn't worth the trouble, so just concentrate on finding some new holes for us (I mean YOU).

Good tips from Jim and James, btw. I haven't been lately, so they're more up on things than I am.

[catfishrus]

10/4 I wont even look then. I just hope we can find something. I would love to be able to get some herring here before I come...should be able to get them but I cannot get them down there before they go bad. Them livebait sellers at santee know a few tricks to keeping them rascals alive. I can buy them down there and keep them alive for two days...but when I get them here....lucky to last 6 hours. Its got to be the conditions process they go through to get them ready to transport.

[Blackwaterkatz]

Ned's down here in Cross has been selling pretty decent herring and shad for $8/doz, but I haven't bought any in a couple of weeks.

[catfishrus]

Yep...thats where we usually get ours. I called blacks again today...she let me cancel my room reservations ...no problem. I told her we was bringing down the camper instead. She said they had plenty of room in the camp ground for that....sounds like biusiness is slow for them. I just noticed tonight the full moon is up...dont know how that will effect us...I have still done well down there with a full moon before for flatheads. Looked at the weather forecast...looks like thunderstroms in the evenings but that can change......usually goes to pouring rain from there....lol. Hope not. Then again Doug is down there somewheres...I think he carries a rain cloud on his shoulders too.

[Blackwaterkatz]

Weather forecast: http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick...x=246&map.y=30
Wind forecast: http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/data/raw...hs.rec.chs.txt

[catfishrus]

Well I been packing up today...I use to be ready to roll in 30 minutes...now I got two boats and have to find stuff and hope I dont forget it...proablly will before its over. Catfishing gets complicated sometimes. I been spoiled fishing these home lakes ...and now its time to travel again. Thanks for the links again Tommy..you always provide top notch stuff. Now you got a link to them side image pictures of yours....lol. If you going to look...might as well share ...right? Well just rambling now...cant wait to get there. Thanks for the info fellows.

[Blackwaterkatz]

Good luck, Michael. I hope you get on them good! I don't actually have any side images of your spots, of course, in case someone else may think so. You've shared some coordinates with me, but I have this thing about infringing on someone else's fishing holes, even with their blessings, and haven't actually fished any of them. Wouldn't make a difference, I know; it's just the way my mind works. lol You've always been good at finding those flatheads down this way, and I feel certain you'll do it again this trip. If I get up that way, I'll stop by and see if you're in. Do you know the site # where you will be?

[catfishrus]

Im not sure what site we will be on yet. You know you more than welcome to fish anything I tell you. There is alot of good spots at santee....more than anyone can fish in a lifetime.

[catfishrus]

Alright I plugged the old gps cordinates into the humminbird on the navonics map chip...didnt see what I wanted to see at first glance...hard to figure really since they was drifting cordinates...so depending on the wind directions when we marked them... could throw us off a little but we should be in the neighborhood anyways....decent starting point I guess. It was interesting to see we had double marked a several spots over a period time(didnt know that)...should be decent spots...maybe. So tip of the day...check all your GPS cordinates and see if you have double marked a spot over time...might be a hidden gem right under your nose.....esp. on santee. Should be on the water tomorrow night...weather permitting.

[catfishaholic]

I have been fishing with Catfishwidowmakr and we have been doing ok on Moultrie, released 5 over 30 last Thursday night in 6-12 feet of water and have been pounding the Channels and small Blues on G&S dip bait. Tom caught one Blue well over 60Thursday night, it measured 51" and was big around as a bushel basket. His scales said 67lbs but we haven't checked it with some Toledo scale weights yet. Catfishwidowmakr, myself, and Santee Steve were fishing together for the weekend. Tom sure knows his stuff when it comes to Santee. You could definately learn from him, Too Bad he isn't here anymore.

[karolina kitty]

While you're down here ya might want to pick up a copy of the Lakeside Magazine....there's a few folks in there ya might know!!!!!!!!!

[catfishrus]

Tuesday report....camper issues with plumbing and refrid wasnt acting right...so no fishing tuesday night....problems was resolved wednesday morning but wednesday night brought bad weather...no fishing wednesday night. Thrusday morning we decided to try our lucky...We ended up fishing until 2.00 pm and catching 30-35 cats...couple in the low 20s including our only flathead of the trip. The flathead was caught off a rod that was hung up...we had two hang at once and landed 2 blues at the same time. Wind wasnt bad so we took the fish over the hang ups...lol. I broke one off and dad was in the process of beaking his off when it came loose to only have a falthead hooked up...wish I could do that everytime I hung up....lol. We had setup on this drift as a test spot...right off the bat dads noticed something floating on the water about a 100yards...I could clearly see it was two fish fighting....I grab the camera and told dad move in on them with the trolling motor....I snapped a bunch of pictures but it was hard to see the fish in the camera due to the glare off the water in the camera. We ended up getting to within 10 yards of the two est. 25-30lb cats. We was all excited about seeing this and dad got jumpy and decided to try and snag one of them...they felt the line and busted top before I could get a good close up....lol. That was the second time in my life I have ever seen cats fighting on top and both times was at santee.




Thrusday night found us back at em again. We caught 20 cats that night with only one channel cat ...biggest was a 25 lber I caught.


Friday night was about the same for numbers with dad landing a 29lber.


saturday night my son wanted to go but the bite had died fro numbers while we only landed 3 fish adn we let him have them all. he ended up catching the biggest fish of teh trip at 33lbs...it was a male fish and put up a great fight for him...I was expecting a flathead the whole time the way the fish was acting....staying down. Owell he was happy and put that team catfish hat to good use.


All in all...mostly what I seen and heard the fish was spawning...plenty of smaller fish being caught but the big fish wasnt there...I did hear rumors of some trotliners catching some big fish but I didnt see them. I marked more fish in the canal this trip than ever before but Im not a big fan of the canal as most of you already know. Penny, I will pick up a copy next weekend.

[Stonewall]

Congrats on the number of fish caught Mike! sounds like a good trip.

[catfishrus]

I forgot to add we had east winds every day/night except for saturday night and it switched to the SW and was coming out of the W this morning when I left. I checked the barrels at blacks several times and biggest fish I seen that had been cleaned was in the 20-25 lb range(not many of them). Dont know that some bigger fish wasnt released by some folks but that was the biggest I seen cleaned. Biggest fish I heard about getting caught was a 35lber a young fellow about 10 years old had caught. He sure had a smile on his face.