“What immediately comes to mind for me,” said Scott Lamprecht, freshwater fisheries regional coordinator for the South Carolina Department of Natural Resource’s Region 4, “is the fall fishing for bream on brushpiles in the Santee Cooper lakes.

“These are usually nice-sized fish. An added bonus is fishing pressure is usually lighter because most sportsmen are consumed with deer hunting that time of year.”

Lamprecht said that two other bream-fishing scenarios grab his attention on Santee Cooper. The fall shellcracker bite is hard to ignore. He said these are generally very large fish that are found on the lower end of the Diversion Canal between the two lakes. These fish will be feeding on the abundant clam population found in that area.

The other fishery that Lamprecht recommended on the lakes is fishing for bedding bluegills during the spring. He explained that anglers would do well from late April until early June fishing in any of the lakes’ shallows around brush and cypress trees. This is primarily accomplished by boat anglers, but where fishermen can find bank access to the lake, they can wade for quite some distance.

Lamprecht noted that some vegetation is returning to the Santee Cooper lakes and bream populations are responding favorably.

“You can hardly beat the bream and shellcracker fishing on the Cooper River,” Lamprecht said. “This bite is mostly in the spring and fall, but summer can be productive at times. It is usually over for the year by November.

“You will want to fish at slack water at the edge of hydrilla beds, especially shallow areas when the fish are bedding. Be certain to be in an area that does not dry up at low tide,” Lamprecht cautioned.

Lamprecht said you could also pick up bream along the main channel of the river by fishing breaks in the rice fields and at the mouths of small creeks. He also said that bream normally can be found in a ribbon of open water between the bank and hydrilla beds in the main channel.

Despite success in the past on the other river that empties the Santee Cooper lakes, Lamprecht said the lack of any recent floods and high catfish populations on the Santee River has limited the bream-fishing opportunities on the river.

There are a host of other spots in the coastal region that Lamprecht mentioned, with some being sleeper spots.

“The Black River can be good if there is inundation of flows into the floodplain,” he said. “I would concentrate my efforts, however, on the upper end, since the lower reaches support a good catfish population, particularly flatheads. Nearby, the Pocotaligo River can be hit or miss for panfish.”

Lamprecht said good bank-fishing opportunities exist on Hwy. 402 just outside of Moncks Corner where the road crosses over Wadboo Creek. Although designed for the paddling community, checking the Web site can provide anglers with a host of backwater areas for panfish in Berkeley County.