Fish like these keep anglers interested in Santee-Cooper catfish during the summer. A properly planned drift at the right depth can put some nice fish in the boat. Photo by Jeff Samsel

What does it take to build a world-class catfishery? In the case of Santee-Cooper blue cats, it took only 825 catfish, each weighing about a pound, which were trucked in from Arkansas in exchange for striped bass in 1964 and 1965.

Of course, the habitat also helped. lakes Marion and Moultrie together offer 170,000 acres of highly fertile waters, an abundance of open waters for blue cats to cruise and six different shad and herring species to provide open-water forage.

Today, Santee-Cooper stands without question as one of the nation's elite destinations for trophy catfish, including flatheads and blues. Channels also show up in good numbers for anglers who target them. However, really big channels are somewhat rare, which is ironic since the world-record channel catfish came from Santee-Cooper. The 58-pound giant was caught in 1964, the first year the blue cats were stocked. Even today, however, some super-duper channels likely still get caught but are mistaken for blues.

One great virtue of the Santee-Cooper catfishery is that the fishing stays terrific throughout the year. Fishing guides book trips and enjoy fine fishing 12 months of the year, with each season offering unique challenges. Late summer is no exception. Catfishing can be outstanding, but anglers must understand how dog day conditions affect the cats' behavior and plan strategies accordingly.

GET THE DRIFT
The baitfish have a tendency to scatter when the water warms up, according to Eddie Covington, a long-time Santee-Cooper guide who fishes mostly for catfish and concentrates his efforts on the lower end of Lake Marion. When the bait spreads out, the cats spread out, so Covington looks for active fish by drifting.

Covington drifts the open water in far lower reaches of the lake. He prefers to drift close to edges of flooded timber, having found that the biggest cats tend to stay close to the trees. However, wind direction largely dictates whether he'll be able to drift parallel to a timber edge. Typically, he likes to drift over 22 to 26 feet of water during midsummer. That also varies, however, based on where he finds bait and catfish with his graph.

Before he begins his first drift, Covington typically does a fair amount of searching with his electronics. He looks for areas where there are good concentrations of baitfish or where he spots a fair number of larger fish that appear to be catfish. He then takes into account the direction and strength of the wind and other factors (such as stands of stumps and trees that he could not reasonably drift through) and then plans the best drift to bring baits through the area with the most fish.

He uses a drift sock to control the speed of his drift and to keep his boat running drifting sideways so his lines don't cross one another. He keeps the sock close to the boat if the wind is not blowing hard and puts out much more rope if it is quite windy.

Covington drifts with 1 1/2-ounce bottom-bumper rigs, putting a crappie cork on his leader between the weight rig and the hook. He uses circle hooks and baits up with gizzard and threadfin shad and blueback herring, always cutting the tails off the baitfish. If they aren't cut off, he believes that the catfish don't bite them as well.

Covington also has found that it is necessary to peg corks at the end facing the weight. If it's pegged the other way, water goes into the hole and causes the cork and the bait behind it to move erratically, again deterring catfish bites. In addition, Covington has found the position of the cork to be critical, and the best position varies daily.