Where, when, what, how?
This Sunday - where can I buy beer, when can I buy beer, what kind of beer should I buy, how do I catch some stripers? 
The best way to catch stripers at Moultrie is to get into your truck and drive 100 miles to the northwest. Put in at Lake Murray Dam, and then you can catch stripers.
As far as I’m concerned the Santee Cooper Lakes are dead. I don’t know why. (I think too many big catfish)
Twenty years ago there were plenty of fish; stripers, crappie, white bass, etc. I sure haven’t had any luck there lately. I have just about stopped fishing there. I usually go to the Cooper River or saltwater now.
Just my opinion.
TheHawg
cant buy beer on sundays in berkeley county buy beer before you come
QUIET TIME
218 SAILFISH
200HPDI
After my trip to Murray, I agree with The Hawg. Some real good striper fishing there.
241 GRADY WHITE
2020 KEY WEST
imcleod,
I have been on four bass tourneys on Santee in the last two years and haven’t caught one fish. I know they are there but finding them is a diferent story. My uncle fishes the lake all the time for stripers and he says there aern’t any over 10 pounds left in the lake.
kloudking1
I wonder why these lakes have died. Do y’all have any ideas??
Here are some things to consider:
-Lots and Lots of big catfish
-hydrilla and/or other grasses
-Grass Carp
-Other hydrilla and grass control strategies
-Paper mill on Congaree
-Hugo
-Rediversion
I don’t know, but the Santee Cooper Lakes played a very big part in my decision to move down here 26 years ago. I am VERY disappointed that fishing on the lakes has become so poor. I wish there was something we could do.
TheHawg
Borrowed from Megalops
As requested, I am writing in response to your Santee Cooper System striped bass observations. Your observations mirror ours. Our last strong year class occurred in 1998 and we have had poor to mediocre natural recruitment and poor survival of stocked fish since 98.
When talking about striped bass, the Lakes and their tributary rivers (Congaree, Wateree, lower Broad, and the lower Saluda) function as one system, as you observed. The Santee Cooper striped bass population has a high annual mortality rate of about 70%. This issue is not new, but was masked by good recruitment during the 90’s. Because of the high mortality rate, a single year of poor recruitment has a profound effect on abundance and population structure. Also, because the mortality rate is so high, few female stripers, which take 4 or 5 years to reach spawning age, live long enough to spawn even once.
There is going to have to be some fundamental changes in how we harvest striped bass, if we want to continue to have a fishable population of striped bass in the future. The population is at an all time low and will not regain a healthy status without some changes (legal limits and angler behavior). Even if we have several years of good recruitment, the fundamental problem will still be there in the background. We are working to improve the survival of the fish we stock, but stocking alone cannot sustain the fishery and has been viewed as supplementing natural reproduction.
Attached is a Draft striped bass fact sheet. It contains some harsh sounding harvest restriction recommendations. There is little hope of moving these ideas through to actual law in their present form, but keep in mind that we are going to have to make a significant cut in that 70% mortality if we want to keep fishing for Santee Cooper System stripers in the future. One idea not included in the Draft, is that anglers voluntarily harvest only males during the spring run, as they mature earlier, are many times more abundant in the spawning
run,
Thanks for the info gang. Moultrie is 1 hour away and a relatively flat ride, Murray is 2 hours away and a hilly ride. I just hate pulling a big boat up hill for 2 hours. But I guess if I want to fish for stripers then Sunday morning I’ll be up on Lake Murray. Wish me luck…
When they killed all the grass, the fishing went downhill fast. Without the grass, the baby fish have nowhere to hide and you end up with a few big fish. I think they screwed up and put too many grass carp in at once, but you won’t hear them admit it was a mistake. I have heard that Santee Cooper’s position is that the lakes primary purpose is for power generation and secondarily for recreational purposes.
I agree, the grass has to have something to do with it. Toledo bend Res. in Tx/La. had the same grass problem. People would travel many miles to fish the lake because of the large catches. Two weeks ago, we fished for 4 days and caught less than 10 large mouth. It took us two days just to find some grass. Thats very sad. Also, You now can buy a very nice Lake house there for an unbelievable low price. The residents complained about not being able to use their coves when the grass clogs up the water. The same thing has happened at Lake Murray. I used to catch more large mouth, but now fish for stripers. The stripers can now find and eat the baitfish easy. I’ve heard that 8-9 # large mouth are schooling. Thats unheard of, but, if the bass dont have enough cover to hide and ambush it’s prey, it might have to resort to those schooling tactics. I might be totally wrong, but, I think Murray will go down hill soon. I just heard about some grass midway up the lake, so I will try there.
I know thats what SCE&G says about Murray also, but there is some kind of law that gives recreation the same priority as power generation. I read about it in Lake Murray News a few weeks ago. DNR put a bunch of carp in Murray also because of pressure from the non-fishing homeowners on the lake. One of my co-worker’s kid shoots them with a bow and he was talking to DNR and they said to shoot everyone they see.
kloudking1
But Santee and Murray were very productive BEFORE the grass ever grew in there. I don’t think it is the loss of the grass, but something they DID to get rid of the grass (chemicals, grass carp, etc.)
I, personally, did not like the grass. It messed up my spring jigger poling and it messed up my duck hunting. Not to mention that night I ran into a mat of it out of Spiers Landing and almost never got out.
It is either that or the catfish. There are so many large catfish there. They must be eating something. I’m afraid that they have already eaten all the white bass and are now working on the crappie and striped bass population.
Maybe the fish population grew, and fishing got better with the grass because the little fish had somewhere to hide from the big catfish. Now that the grass is gone, the catfish are eating all the others. Now that sounds like a likely possibility.
TheHawg
I think that’s it. The little fingerlings dont have a prayer, or a good place to hide. We ought to have a big catfish tourn and see how many catfish we can catch and eat. I’m sure the chemicals used to kill grass cant be good for the environment either. I can remember 15 tears ago going to betty’s landing (near S&S camp) and slaying the bream. I was fishing in the middle of the grass, in the sandy pockets where they were bedding. Whew, lots of bream. We caught them till we had a good mess, then left them for the next trip. My question is are the bream still there like they used to be. My gut feeling says no. I hope I’m wrong, but catfish love to eat bream, as well as Large mouth.
I don’t know if santee is the same but murray has a growing population of gar, jackfish and mudfish. I usually catch a few jackfish when bass fishing. With all of the predator fish in the lake I don’t see how any small fish could survive very long!
kloudking1
Ditto, I noticed the same thing. I heard it’s worse closer to the Dam. Less grass, maybe.