Photo by Ron Sinfelt

From bass moving to the beds to bass moving under schooling baitfish, prime time for largemouth bass is coming up in South Carolina.

As a bass fisherman it was a situation you would always hope to come across. Once experiencing it, you wish it would last forever. The problem is it rarely does.

One November over a decade ago, a friend and I were out on Lake Moultrie scouting ducks for the upcoming waterfowl season. It was a gorgeous fall day with moderate temperatures, high blue skies and light winds. Given the conditions, we decided to make a combo trip out of the day and carry the fishing rods.

That was a good decision.

Slowly cruising the Russellville Flats area, we spotted scattered flocks of ducks, but what really caught our attention was the largemouth bass activity. The water was erupting with baitfish being blown to the top by schooling bass. Expecting we might find schooling stripers on the trip, we were prepared with some topwater baits.

As soon as a bait hit the water, it was engulfed by a largemouth. I am not talking about a rambunctious bass weighing 1 pound. These were quality fish. The majority weighed 3 and 4 pounds, while a few kicked close to 6 pounds.

Although the action moved about the area, it stayed constant all afternoon. It was a thrill and, literally, a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The next year, things had changed. The holes in the grassbeds that we’d been casting into were gone. The flats had become a large sandbox pocked with the occasional cypress stump. In a year, conditions were drastically different.

It is rare that such radical changes take place on the bass waters of the state. But reservoirs and rivers do evolve. Sometimes what changes is the habitat; at other times, it is the composition of the fish population; and of course, sometimes both change. That’s why it is important to take an annual snapshot of some of the bass-fishing holes around the state.

UPSTATE
It’s hard to talk about fishing in this part of the state without starting the conversation with Lake Jocassee. After all, it is home to four species of black bass (largemouth, smallmouth, redeye or Coosa and spotted) and the lake is a record setter. The state-record spotted (8-2, 1996) smallmouth (9-7, 2001) and redeye (5-2 1/2, 2001) bass were all caught in Lake Jocassee.

“Lake Jocassee is a deep, clear reservoir,” said Dan Rankin, Region 1 fisheries biologist for the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR). “It is a very infertile lake with a low number of bass. However, the forage base is what makes the lake for bass.”

Rankin explained that although the lake is not very productive, there is very little competition for the ideal food base.

“The forage base on Jocassee consists of threadfin shad and blueback herring,” Rankin said. “The bluebacks are the more cold tolerant of the two species and as a result are usually the most dominant. We do see an abundance of threadfins on occasion, but they’re more prone to winter kills.