Variety is the Spice of Santee Cooper Fishing

Yesterday's plan included probing deep-water brush for crappie and bluegills and drifting the canal with cut bait for blue cats in the current.

This afternoon we will set up over deep water in lower Lake Moultrie and fish live herring on down lines for big blues and stripers. However, we could just as well be going up onto shallow ponds around Marion or Moultrie to cast for largemouths or pitch worms under floats for shellcrackers or gearing up big with perch and gills in the bait tank to hunt flatheads.

One of my favorite things about the 180,000-acre Santee Cooper system (and there are many!) is the sheer variety of types of opportunities that are available pretty much all the time.  So many species abound in these lakes and grow to big sizes, but the variety extends way beyond the species mix because any given kind of fish can be caught many different ways.

Really the hardest thing about fishing down here for me is deciding which fun thing I want to do any given day!