Santee

[Patrick Vowell]

Any body seen the lake to know the conditions or if anybodys catchin ' anything?

[kunes]

When is that tournament on Santee?

[rango]

I was on marion weekend of aug 27th,, the weekend gaston hit. im planning on going back down on the 9th of oct then again the 22nd of oct.. water looked good and fish was doing fairly well. my boat dint catch anything to brag about but a friends boat done real good. the biggest fish is posted on this board a few threads below under hollys blue.. dont know what it looks like now after all these storms,, probably pretty full

[Patrick Vowell]

Crappie USA Classic 9/22 - 9/25 :D

[Patrick Vowell]

i have got a couple of mixed reports over the last few days.. From what I understand it will be very treachorous to get outside and even in the main channel without dealing with alot of debris...then take Ivan and compound any issues that are already in place.. I 've never fished this lake... Any colors or patterns you guys would reccomend for a starting point ?

[rango]

Patrick, back in the mid eighties or so, i fished crappie tournaments and we fished santee several times. we trolled with the lines out the back. we never placed in the money but done alright by our standards but its been so long ago i cant help you. when i go to santee now its to fish for the big cats. Its a crappie fishermans paradise tho, with all them treetops and stumps sticking up out of deep water. I wish it was closer to where we could make night outtings but its so expensive to make the trip down, i dont do it often enought to suit me. I like going down cause we crappie fish so much it makes a good break occasionally go somewhere else and fish for something different. Id say whatever works for you at other lakes in the south would work for you there. at least it would be a starting point then you could adjust as you needed to. congratulations to you if you qualified for the classic.. what lake did you qualify on?

[Patrick Vowell]

thanx for the response rango... I qualified on caeser creek ohio in region 3....
Is it true the crappie down there average a pound or so ? I also like them cats. I may have to play around with them a little prefishing...

[rango]

theres some nice crappie down this way. I think the further north you go from the south the smaller the average fish tends to be. guys coming down from the north would probably refer to what we call lifters as netters. the last couple years weve been catching some really big crappie in wylie at night. right now the slabs are hard to come by. all this weather weve had lately has changed the patterns a lot. one and half to two pound crappie are slabs but not enought to create any undue excitement as they are fairly common. theres also a lot of smaller fish caught. we did have one on one night that would probably push close to three, if not more, but the angler tried to lift it as everyone in the boat was reaching for one of the two nets we carry. needles to say,, the hook pulled out and it laid there a second or two before it swam off... the guy was sick and still is i think lol. He learned a lesson the hard way... it dont cost you nothing to net a fish...
bring you a couple catfish rods and spend some time after the days fishing trying the catfish out. i dont know where you staying but if you leave from harrys at the head of the diversion canal and follow the markes out for a mile or so you will see a island on the left with two smaller islets at the end with a couple trees on em. actually you can see em from harrys. we catching the big catfish by anchoring on the edge of the channel towards the two trees. the water gets real shallow so be careful. if you anchor on the upper edge of the channel you can fish shallow water on one side and deep water on the channel side. use cut bait, crappie works great, with a couple ozs weight and about a ten o cricle hook. make sure the rod is secured in a good holder cause when the hit comes, you aint gonna have time to react before its gone. Im going down in about three weeks but this time i think im gonna fish the canal some as they say the canal is a good place during the month of october and its sheltered from the wind. also beware of paying attention to the channel markers. hugo snapped a lot of the submerged trees off just below the water line, and water that looks clear is full of hazards. proced very slow if you leaving the markers on marion. dont take no shortcuts. somethings more than likely to get tore up if you do.

[Patrick Vowell]

I sure appreciate all of the info... I am looking forward to getting down there.. I wish I was closer because I would sure like to tie up with you guys and drown some baits on bottom sometime..

[rango]

wed enjoy having you hook up with us one night. if you ever in the area let us know and well set up a night