White beetle spin with the red dot laced with a cricket, cricket under a cork with small split shot, and pink worms on the bottom. Nice variety. Final tally was a few more red breast and Blue gill. Did a little more exploring than fishing. Marked off some areas for some night bushlines.
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Nice! Reminds me of Clear Lake.
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Nice
Where is that?
Recently got access to a little feeder creek that runs into the Big Salkehatchie. Too hard to get there from Dempsey landing. This area is up a bit from the forks. We’ve been scouting out some camping areas and cutting a few snags out the way. Plan one day to run it all the way to public landing near hwy 21. With all the logging in the area and many getting too close to the Riparian zones (dmz?) tons of trees have been blown over from lack of wind protection and many shallow rooted trees species. If only our swamp loggers and land owners were made to replant cypress on and near the banks. One of the few trees that really protect against erosion and won’t blow over. Most anywhere on the river you see a cypress on the bank in good moving water, there is usually a deep spot there holding fish.
Fripp, Looks a lot like the clear lake area, on into camel lake, then notty head lake… then something else that’s not appropriate to say, on to the forks.
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Went into Clear Lake about 40 years ago and the run had been logged up to pretty close with a lot of resultant treefalls to either pull over or squeeze under. Like you had described.
Pretty area. Nice mess of fish in your cooler.
Sure is pretty back in there.
I haven’t been exploring like that in years.
Nice mess of fish…
Those red bellies and dark water… beautiful! Thanks for all the info too
You gonna pickle that pikerel? 
Already eaten. Scaled and scored it, put some redfish blackening powder, butter, lemon and fresh dill. Wrapped in aluminum foil and put it on the grill. Gently and carefully picked through meat. Delicious, but I wouldn’t do it like that for an amateur fish eater.
Ours are too small imo to do like I was taught with the BIG northern pike. You waste a lot of meat but you can fillet out a long strip with no Y bones. I didn’t have much success, but I’ve tried scaling and filleting with skin on and cross cutting entire fillet to skin and deep frying. Still had too many bones for me to feel comfortable swallowing.
On the pike… red rooster tail. Shhhhhh.
love me a fresh jackfish, i wasn’t the one frying but i swear the bones were nonexistent. scored all the way to the backbone.
y’all are way up from where we go camping in May, we normally get up to the forks-ish and fish back down. absolutely criminal how close the logging gets to the river, seems like a horrible practice for runoff, trees down, heating up the river/swamp, etc, etc
there’s a heck of a lot of “new” access above the forks, used to be alone when you got up there and now there’s groups of kayakers coming from upriver out of seemingly nowhere. It looks like you’ve got a sweet spot up there in the backwaters… God’s country for sure!
gorgeous cooler of brimses!
Yes sir, more access areas on the Hampton and Colleton side than ever. Still pretty exclusive for most… so far. Dry season is a 100yard drag to the main run at this place. Roughly 4 miles of dirt/ private road to get to “landing” on Colleton side.
I’ve been in and around the swamp loggers off and on in that swamp for 30 years and yes sir, some pretty piss poor practices. The biggest issue is when a large area is logged and just a few large trees near the main run, a strong wind comes up and the our shallow rooted trees just blow over.
There was a logger out of Washington state that was pretty conservative on the runs and actually dug out some DEEP holes coming off the main runs while building access roads. The shark teeth and fossilized wood were amazing. He was made to remove all the logging roads built in but there are still some of the deep holes around near the Dempsey landing area.
I’ve seen some of the jack leg loggers actually use the main run to pull/skid wood down. The bottom is actually harder than the surrounding bank in most places. I’ve been over it in a plane and it is crazy obvious from water color. Don’t see much of it like that anymore thank goodness.
In my early childhood I’ve seen Rockfish/stripers that wouldn’t fit in a # 3 wash tube as far up as 63. Haven’t caught one in my adult life past the Tea house (Combahee Plantation).