Imagine a southern lake so big and so full of shallow water structure it would take two lifetimes to fish it all. Now imagine another lake connected to that one almost as big, and you have Lake Marion and Moultrie, known collectively as Santee Cooper. This is where our Bucket List Series visited last month and this is the story.
After last year’s initial visit to Lake Marion, we were intrigued enough to make plans to fish this massive reservoir again.
Lake Marion is the largest lake in South Carolina, referred to as the state’s inland sea with 315-miles of shoreline and covering nearly 110,000 acres. Lake Moultrie is 70,000+ acres.
For our stay, basecamp was the Tom Charles cottage on Goat Island in Taw Caw Creek on Lake Marion. We fished from there as well as launched in Potato Creek and in Eutawville on the southeastern end of the lake.
This sprawling shallow water fishery is full of lily pads, cypress trees and submerged aquatic vegetation and harbors plenty of giant crappie and largemouth bass.
Lake Marion was created by the construction of the eight-mile long Santee Dam in November 1941, part of the state-owned electric and water utility Santee Cooper’s Hydroelectric and Navigation Project. The project also included construction of the Pinopolis Dam (Cooper River Dam) to create Lake Moultrie, immediately downstream, and a diversion canal seven and a half miles long to connect the two. This was one of the infrastructure projects supported by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression to provide jobs and invest in the future. It created one of the country’s top bass and crappie fisheries as well as generated hydroelectric power.
The state fishing record for largemouth bass (16.2 lbs) was set at this lake. Other fish that abound include striped bass, white perch, white bass, crappie, channel catfish, Arkansas blue catfish, shellcrackers, bream and chain pickerel. For our visit we focused on largemouth bass.
Bassmasters Magazine ranked the Santee Cooper system as one of the top 10 bass fisheries in the country for 2023 and held an Elite Series event there in 2022 where two anglers achieved the coveted century belt with over 100 pounds of bass over the four-day event.
Last year, we stayed in a lakeside cottage next to I-95 in the Pametto Shores resort complex. This year, we chose to stay closer to where we caught the most fish and rented a wonderful, lakeside cottage that accommodated our three-person party perfectly.
Our expedition consisted of myself, my brother and my son and my TRACKER 2072 Grizzly center console equipped with a Minn Kota trolling motor and two networked Humminbirds with side imaging, down imaging and GPS.
During our early March stay last year it took a couple days, but we figured out the fish were bedding in Taw Caw Creek and capitalized on our sight fishing prowess to amass a nice 20-pound plus limit one day. We did not venture into Potato Creek. Naturally we returned having researched where the Elite Series pros caught fish in the event that was held the week after our 2022 stay. Potato Creek was where the winner fished each day. Other top finishers fished at Eutaw Springs.
I literally researched where to fish for many, many hours using Bassmasters footage, a Lakes Illustrated paper map, Google Earth and the new Humminbird One Boat Network app on my phone. The latter was the most helpful since I have not yet found a chip for my Humminbird depthfinder that shows Lake Marion.
Even after all of that, for this year’s stay we found fishing to be tougher than expected with muddy water in Taw Caw Creek and around the massive, flooded cypress forests on the southern end of the lake. There were no fish to be seen in either area and we saw no one catch any fish around us, and there were folks fishing hard.
About the only consistent fishing we found was in Potato Creek where the water was clear, and some fish were beginning to move up to spawn in 62-70-degree water. Here’s how our return expedition went each day.
Day 1
We were up and rolling south from Richmond by 7:15 am and made the cabin by 1:30 pm. We had floated the Grizzly and were fishing by 2:15 wanting to learn as much as we could before sunset.
After three-and-a-half frustrating hours of zero bites in muddy Taw Caw we motored the Grizzly the seven plus miles to Potato Creek and discovered to our great relief that the entire lake wasn’t a muddy mess. In Potato we found calm coves with lily pads and coontail grass awaited us the last hour of the evening.
It was here that I, having no luck pitching a creature bait or slow rolling a spinnerbait or vibrating jig, decided to try a pearl soft plastic jerkbait. I was thankful I did.
Tossing it out in the middle of the lilypad-lined cove to openings in 4-5’ deep coontail beds I caught the first fish of the trip – a chain pickerel. Not long after that I was again casting the jerkbait when I felt a hit and set the hook.
It felt like a decent largemouth but didn’t jump at all during the fight. My son held out the net and in came a massive crappie that made me catch my breath it was so large. That fish weighed 3-2 on a digital scale and measured 18”. This was easily the largest crappie I’d ever caught and a true trophy.
After some pics and general marveling, I slipped the big speck back into the water and it was time to head back to Taw Caw Creek and the cabin. We followed the setting sun to the mouth of the creek on a 78-degree evening knowing the next three days of fishing were going to be pretty awesome.
Day 2
Hopeful anticipation had us up and rolling with the Grizzly in tow over to Potato Creek where we launched all the way in the back of at Potato Creek Landing for $5.
We returned to that clear water hoping to find bass on beds as well as fish the area that BASSmaster Elite angler Drew Cook won the 2022 event – the same lily pad-filled cove I caught the big crappie in.
Our day was beautiful – sunny and calm with air temperature to reach 75 degrees and a full moon the night prior. On paper it appeared to be the perfect time to catch Lake Marion’s bass moving up to spawn.
At first light we found 66-72-degree water and figured it was on. We got right in those pads looking for spawners, just like Cook did. The only problem was that the bass just weren’t there. We did find some very flighty bass circling beds in another nearby lily pad-filled cove, but they were as skittish as cats in a rocking chair factory. Evidently it was too early, regardless of the water temperature and the moon phase.
We fished soooo hard that day. By 5:30 pm my son had caught two largemouth bass and my brother and I had nothing. I did loose a four-pound plus fish I coaxed into eating a Berkley Drop Shot Minnow on a bed behind a willow grass line. Looking back, that was the clue to what the fish were doing that we should have stayed with for the next two days. It was odd though, that we couldn’t even catch fish moving up and saw hardly any cruising fish.
We did fish a pretty neat back channel that offered some great frog fishing opportunities. I received one, thunderous strike and turned a fish of approximately five plus pounds but couldn’t keep the hog on the line. We also encountered a small alligator that chased our frogs through the pads, but it was more like a watery nature trail than a good fishing hole.
On the 20-minute ride back to the cabin we were flabbergasted. How in the world could we have fished so hard and only caught two largemouth bass from Lake Marion? With that skunk taste in my mouth, I planned for us to fish a totally different area of the lake – the famed, flooded cypress forests of Eutaw Springs on the southeastern end of the lake.
I fell asleep BEFORE dinner this night, woke up to eat and then watched a bit of the ACC tournament before turning in.
Day 3
We launched as close as we could to the area we’d be fishing as today brought wind from the northwest that rolled down the lake and roiled the water when it wasn’t protected by an island or grove of trees. The ramp was down a 1.7-mile long sand and gravel road and I cannot recommend it. Blount’s Harbor Marina would have been a better choice but a longer ride in the Grizzly.
I consulted my Humminbird One Boat Network app and Google Earth constantly to manuever us through the maze of trees and shallow water and we eventually reached where we wanted to fish. We idled the entire way to ensure we didn’t hit any stumps at a damaging speed. Incredibly we noted a couple wrapped boats in the same area as well as several other anglers.
This area was where other top five finishers in the Elite Series event fished last year. There is a line of cypress trees along a creek channel of sorts. The trees are in 2-4’ and the channel drops into 6-10’. I figured if perhaps the fish were not on the trees, they would be staged in the nearby deeper water. There were others that were thinking the same thing.
Once we reached the cypress trees we wanted to target we did our best to fish them with spinnerbaits, creature baits and vibrating jigs in that wind, but it was tough. We ended up fishing all the way back into the creek without a strike and then following a lily-pad filled, mile-long back channel where there should have been fish. In fact, we meet a few local anglers that thought the same thing, but no one was catching anything. We saw another alligator and a few chain pickerel but nothing else. Dejected, we idled back to the ramp at 12:30 and decided to try and fish Taw Caw Creek again in the afternoon, hopeful the water had cleared up some and the fish were shallow.
We fished hard again that afternoon but to my utter surprise, came up empty. There were very few bass boats in the creek as well – not a good sign!
So, after three days on one of the country’s best fisheries, we had tallied one crappie, one pickerel, and four bass.
For our final day, we would go back to fish Potato Creek where we had seen some signs of life but this time it wasn’t going to be 78 degrees and calm…
Day 4
We woke up to 48 degrees with a brisk north wind blowing. We had wisely packed our medium weight outerwear and donned everything we had to start our day.
Our first stop was the main lake point outside those lily pad coves where we saw a few beds. The thought there was to fish just off the weedline to try and find staged fish. It was a good idea but provided no strikes for our first hour. We spoke to another local with a 40-year-old old Bomber style bass boat and an equally ancient Evinrude outboard and he wasn’t catching anything either.
With the wind rising and making it tough to fish anything but the lee NE shoreline I located a creek on the Humminbird One Boat Network App that looked protected and headed that way.
Turned out to be our first bit of luck as there were some slick stretches that had escaped that wind that also offered sand bottom and wood spawning cover. Within a few minutes we saw a bass cruising a bed site, then another and eventually another. There was hope!
We fished all around the area with nothing and then about two hours later some of the fish started locking in and biting. Mitchell caught two fishing in the front of the boat using a Neko-rigged soft plastic stickbait skipped among the trees and grass. One of the fish he caught was a fine five-pound bass.
I wish I could say that the rest of the afternoon featured waves of five pounders hitting the banks but that wasn’t the case. We did see several five pounders and even larger fish on the inside of willow grass lines in lee areas, but they wouldn’t hold on or defend their beds. Mitchell caught one more, I caught two and my brother finally caught a bass.
I’ll admit, this was the most confounding fishing trips I’ve ever been on. Everything appeared perfect to experience a true Whackfest with the water temperature, body of water and moon phase, but the fish just weren’t ready to move up for some reason.
We ate that night at the Goat Island Restaurant across from the cabin. It’s a great place that helped us celebrate our final night of spring break in South Carolina with massive burgers and properly mixed drinks.
I told my companions I couldn’t think of two better people I’d rather take a bass whuppin’ with, and despite the lack of fish, we had a fun four days together.
Lake Marion is a must for your own Bucket List if you are a bass or crappie angler. During our visit we caught crappie up to 3-2 and bass up to five pounds. The Bassmasters Elite teams will visit again at the end of April and you can expect to see some 30-pound limits if conditions are right.
If you go, consider staying where we did (the Tom Charles Cottage) and eating at the Goat Island Restaurant where the burgers are as big as Lake Marion bass, just make sure you don’t let the skinny guy make the sandwiches and bring some good bourbon for evening sippin’.
