Santee is comprised of Lakes Marion and Moultrie and is nestled in the lowlands of South Carolina.

Catfishing is excellent in these lakes.

Arkansas Blues

Blue catfish are caught year round on Santee.  The below are daytime season patterns.

Winter time - Blues can be caught using cut bream, gizzard shad, or any other natural bait fish.  Anchoring up and slinging out 4-8 poles is your best bet.  The Arkansas Blues are moving and eating less with the decreased temperatures.  Fishing just off the river channel in winter time is a favorite of ours and has produced for us year after year.  Fishing in deeper water, 24-35 feet, off the river channel or in between flats is also a winter time tactic that produces for us year in and year out.

Spring time - Blue catfish are becoming more active as the water temp starts to rise.  We will use the winter time tactic in early spring.  When the temps start rising we will look for shallow water.  The increase in temp warms the shallow water up quicker and the shallow water will be anywhere from 5-9 degrees higher than deeper water.  Shallow spots around bank lines or up in a cove have produced for us over the years.  We still are using cut bait as mentioned above.  When temps have settled in to a warmer pattern and the blue catfish are active, we will use drift patterns.  To drift fish, you need 1 or 2 drift socks, and good rod holders (45 degree angle one) (We will cover drift fishing in entirety in another article.)  We drift everywhere.  Shallow to deep and deep to shallow.  With drifting, you cover a lot of area and your bait is smelled by more catfish.  Bait - when we drift, we like to use whole gizzard shad or blue back herring.  We will put the whole bait on.  The bait fish will die the way we hook them but when you are drifting the bait fish is moving so it appears "alive" to catfish.

Summer time - When the temps are high we are still drift fishing.  You can anchor up and fish some holes but you will burn up and find out you will catch more by drifting.  We will mainly drift deeper holes but we include flats on our drifts.  If the fish are holding deeper, we'll concentrate deeper, if they are on the flats, we'll concentrate there.

Fall time - When temps start to slowly fall you can use a little of Spring time and Winter time tactics.  The catfish will be in a "frenzy" mode trying to fill up before Winter sets in.  Try anchoring and drifting.  Catfish will be caught using both tactics but by doing both you can zero in on where the numbers are at and where the hawgs are at.

Flathead Catfish

Flatheads are caught year round on Santee but we only target them in the end of Summer through the end of Fall.  This is the best time of year to target in on them and the best time when you can catch good sized ones and a lot of them if the right conditions are there.  Live bait is a must, I can't over emphasize that enough.  You must have live bait.  Will flatheads eat cutbait --- yes, but they prefer live bait and that is all we use to catch them with.  Flatheads are predators not scavengers; keep that in the back of your mind when huntin' them.  We mainly hunt for them on Lake Marion in the stump fields.  We prefer to find good cover near an old creek, pond, or river channel.  Look for flatheads on your fish finder and anchor on top of them.  Don't put your anchor on them, put a front anchor out 100 feet or so in front of the hole and an anchor out the back 100 feet or so.  That way you don't disturb them or their hole.  We prefer gizzard shad but you can use any type of live bait, bream, crappie, blue back herring -- as long as the bait is live and frisky!  I like to put the bait right down in front of them.  Here I like to use a rod holder at a 90 degree angle.  Release your bait down.  Once it hits bottom bring it back up about 18 inches and be ready and hold on.

You can find snags and holes and cast out to them but your odds of getting snagged or have the flathead catfish pick your bait up and run back to their cover and getting you snagged increase with this method.  If you do fish this way just be patient and know that you will have to tie a lot of knots.

We'll discuss how we rig our tackle in another article.

I hope this gives you a little insight on catfishing on Santee.  If you have other questions concerning catfishing on Santee, shoot me an email.

Thanks,

James

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