South Carolina wrote the first chapter of landlocked striper fishing, and Lake Murray still tells it: summer dawn blowups near the dam, winter bird-play in the creeks and a dock-and-brush largemouth fishery that quietly wins national events.
Reports current for Friday, September 4
Live verdicts from this morning's reports.
South Carolina's 50,000-acre jewel on the Saluda: stripers with a landlocked pedigree and summer cane-pile crappie.
Sixty miles of Grand Strand surf and piers, with Lowcountry creeks hiding behind the neon.
Santee-Cooper's upper lake: flooded cypress, landlocked striper history and catfish of legend.
The lower Santee lake: open water, big blues and the canal that started it all.
The clear Blue Ridge cooling lake: spotted bass depth and year-round comfort water.
The Saluda's small striper lake: big-fish surprises above Murray.
Lowcountry central: spartina marsh to the horizon, schooling winter reds in gin-clear shallows, and a harbor where three rivers argue with the sea.
The Catawba's last pool: old-school South Carolina crappie water with striped bass memories, blue cat channels and cypress-lined coves.
The seafood capital fishes its own marsh: Murrells' creeks and jetties run flounder, reds and sheepshead behind the restaurant row.
The Blue Wall's deep secret: 300-foot clarity, trophy trout in a southern lake and waterfalls pouring straight into the fishery.
Below the lakes: the Santee River runs stripers, catfish and shad through the South Carolina lowcountry.
A Piedmont river through Sumter National Forest: the Broad runs bass, catfish and bream past Union.
A cold tailwater in the capital: the Saluda runs trout below Lake Murray through Columbia.
Species activity across the state's covered waters. Peak of the year: October.
1 = slow, 5 = peak. Current month highlighted.
Seasonal surface curve for this state's dominant water type (estimated).
| Water | Type | County | Live gauge | Peak month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lake Murray | Reservoir | Lexington | USGS | Mar |
| Myrtle Beach | Coastal | Horry | modeled | Sep |
| Lake Marion | Lake | Clarendon | USGS | Mar |
| Lake Moultrie | Reservoir | Berkeley | USGS | Mar |
| Lake Keowee | Reservoir | Oconee | USGS | Mar |
| Lake Greenwood | Reservoir | Laurens | USGS | Mar |
| Charleston | Coastal | Charleston | modeled | Sep |
| Lake Wateree | Reservoir | Kershaw | modeled | Mar |
| Murrells Inlet | Coastal | Georgetown | modeled | Sep |
| Lake Jocassee | Reservoir | Oconee | modeled | Apr |
| Santee River | River | Berkeley | modeled | Mar |
| Broad River | River | Union | USGS | Mar |
| Saluda River | River | Richland | USGS | Apr |
South Carolina's fresh side runs through its big Savannah and Santee-Cooper reservoirs: Murray's stripers and cane-pile crappie, Hartwell shared with Georgia, and the legendary Santee-Cooper lakes where landlocked stripers were discovered and catfish grow to legend. The salt side is Lowcountry: flood-tide redfish in the spartina, trout on the drops, and the Grand Strand's pier culture at Myrtle Beach.
Spring: herring spawns on the reservoirs and inshore trout waking up. Summer: dawn schooling stripers, tarpon rumors around the jetties, nighttime catfishing. Fall: bull reds in the inlets, crappie stacking on brush. Winter: clear-water sight fishing for reds in the creeks (the Lowcountry's best-kept secret) and Santee's trophy blues at their peak.
June and July at first light near the dam: striper schools push herring to the surface in open water. Be idling out before sunrise.