Photo by Terry Madewell

Lying in the bottom of the boat, the tube of squirming crickets reminded me of dove hunting.

I usually go afield for doves with a dove bucket full of shotgun shells in an attempt to gather a limit of birds. I thought if I use this tube of crickets on this fishing trip, then I’m going to have a load of bream to fry.

My destination was a quiet strip of the Santee River along the Berkeley and Williamsburg county line below Arrowhead Landing and the confluence of the river with the Rediversion Canal flowing out of Lake Moultrie.

It was a gorgeous spring afternoon in the middle of May. Only a remnant flowering dogwood could be seen in the river’s floodplain, and most trees were already awash in fresh green foliage that was not yet withered by the heat and humidity of the upcoming summer.

Flooding on the Santee River dictates the quality of fishing one can expect on the river. When the river overflows its banks, nutrients locked in the swamp are added to the water. This makes the water more productive and fish populations thrive on the added smorgasbord.

The river was not flooding on this particular day, but it had flooded a couple of times during the previous calendar year, and most recently during the preceding winter. The bream population should, I thought, be in fine shape.

After motoring down the river a ways, I tied the boat to an overhanging limb, careful to avoid any wasp nests that might be hiding under the foliage. The river level was medium high, but the current was not flowing extremely strong. Because of the height of the water, many tree skeletons of former river sentinels were submerged fore and aft of my position. I could already picture in my mind the myriad pods of hungry bream positioned in the woody debris.

With one shake, a cricket came out of the burgeoning tube of bait. He was threaded on the No. 6 hook and suspended below two tiny split shots and a small float.

I dropped him down off the boat’s stern, and before the ripples of the float had drifted a foot, the float was jerked underwater. The ultralight featured a nice bend, but the average-sized bream was boated without much fanfare.

My fishing partner quickly added a fish to the cooler. Despite it only being early afternoon, the bream bite was constant. What had been envisioned as a long afternoon trip looked like it was going to be cut short by a diminishing supply of bait and growing pile of fish bodies in the cooler. A person only needs so many fish, and certainly doesn’t want the job of cleaning fish to become a chore.

We started releasing the smaller bream, and began boating only premium hammerhead fish. With about two dozen fish in the cooler, we wrapped up the trip and headed back to the landing. We would be home in time to clean the fish and stow gear all before suppertime.

It does not matter whether your objective is to land large bream or a mess of fish, or both -- there are plenty of opportunities across the state for both shore-bound and boat anglers.