"Catfish are at different levels in the water, and where the float is on the leader determines the level the bait will come through. I'll start out with them all set differently and then change them all after I get a strike," he said.

Unlike many guides, who spool up with very heavy braided line for drift-fishing, Covington uses 30-pound-test Trilene Big-Game. He does a lot of his drifting precariously close to the tree lines, where downed trees and stumps are a big part of the equation, and he finds it too difficult to break heavier line if multiple lines get snagged in the middle of a drift.

"I've found that 30-pound-test works well for getting fish in, so there's no reason for me to mess with the really heavy line," he said.

Pete Pritchard, another long-time guide on the Santee-Cooper lakes, also spends some of his summer days drifting, using the same types of tactics. Instead of drifting the open water in the lower end of the lake, however, Pritchard typically focuses on the edges of the Santee River channel, which follows the lake's south shore through much of the lower half of Lake Marion.

Pritchard has found that a lot of big blues will be down in the channel or on the ledge just above it. If winds are conducive to doing so, he'll plan drifts to pull baits across the flat on one side of the channel, down the slope and through the bottom of the channel. Of course, if he gets most of his strikes either on the ledge or inside the channel, he'll adjust his next drift accordingly.

While Covington and Pritchard fish mostly in the Upper Lake, as Marion is often called, many anglers who drift prefer the open waters of the Lower Lake. Unlike Lake Marion, Lake Moultrie doesn't have a forest beneath its surface. Therefore, drifting is much less frustrating for most anglers.

Drifting the wide-open waters of Lake Moultrie appears very random, but the areas that veteran anglers choose to drift never have anything to do with chance. Beneath Moultrie's surface lies a complex network of swamp sloughs, canals and slight hills that rise to divide the flooded swamps. The cats follow baitfish up and down the sloughs and relate to well-defined ridges and cuts in what looks like the middle of nowhere.

An angler who doesn't know the lake well can simply search an area for baitfish and catfish, using a map and a graph for reference, and then plan drifts to cross those areas that show the most promise. At times that approach can be very effective. However, guides and other Santee-Cooper regulars follow the movements of the cats and the baitfish daily and they begin their searches in very specific areas that they find with GPS units or in the depths the most cats have been pulled from in recent days.

HITTING HUMPS
Pritchard also spends quite a few summer days in the upper half of Lake Marion, anchored over humps and spreading flatlines onto the slopes around him for blue catfish. He's found that blues of all sizes will relate to the humps on summer days, and he can capitalize on the habits of those fish by spreading chunks of shad and herring around the boat.

Pritchard likes humps that top out in 5 to 10 feet of water and are surrounded by water that is 16 to 18 feet deep. His favorite area for this style of fishing is the lake's main body within a couple miles in either direction of the Interstate 95 bridge. "There are humps all over the place in that part of the lake," Pritchard said.