Crappie.com - Lake Greenwood Crappie Masters 3/4, 3/5

Crappie Masters held the 2 day SC State Championship on Lake Greenwood on March 4th and 5th. I fished the event and we had several other crappie.com members. Overall the fishing was tough, but as usual someone found the big ones. Anglers either caught plenty of fish with few big ones or for the ones that caught quality fish it seemed the bites were limited. Anglers fished from the dam all the way up the lake. It seems the numbers were good up the lake, with size being down and the quality fish were caught lower to mid lake with anglers getting very few bites in these areas. Day 1 leaders Kevin Hawkins and Ben Mcguirt reported that they had 7 bites all day and brought in a sack of 12.17. Several other teams reported catching 8-14 fish the whole day. Day 2 was very similar, a tough bite but their were several big sacks brought to the scales. South Carolina boys Ray Koon and Mike Huffstetler had the biggest sack of the day and won the event with a 2 day total of 23.74 lbs. They reported catching their fish on junebug/chartrues sliders and hand-made baits longline trolling at 1.4 mph. They caught all of their weighing fish each day early and caught them shallow in the water column fishing in deep water. They caught very few fish after 11am on both days. Congrats to Ray and Mike on the win and all the other teams that competed. As always Mike Vallentine and Crappie Masters put on a great tournament that is family oriented. I hope they will return to SC next year. The highest place crappie.com member was Mr. Rick Warlick finishing 10th with 18.45 lbs, Scott Mayer was just behind him in 12th with 18.41 lbs.

As for me I can say that we caught a good many fish in the 3 days that I fished, but never could find any quality fish that would bite. They always say that your home lake can be your worst enemy and that proved true this year. We spent too much time on both days trying to get the big ones to bite in areas that I know they live, but are always tough to get to bite this time of year. We finally found some good fish that bit on Saturday, but it was pretty much too late being that we found them around 1:30 that afternoon and we would have to stop at 3 to get to the weigh in on time. We spent a lot of time moving trying to get on some good fish on both days and in the end that probably doomed us. It's easy to say it now, but we should have settled down and fished some areas that we have always caught fish and culled through them instead of trying to get fish that don't consistently bite to bite. Things didn't turn out like I was wanting to, but I enjoyed it and hope to get another shot in the future. Congrats to all the winners and I enjoyed talking with everyone!

1st Place