While Bernard has learned where a number of the best spots are, his basic pattern is to key on deep water. He prefers the outside channel bends.

However, that's not the only kind of structure that is worth fishing, he noted. For example, a junction of a tributary creek entering the Cooper River is also a potentially excellent spot.

To fish a spot, he'll get the boat over the preferred anchoring location and gets anchors set solidly so there's minimal boat movement. He spends ample time on the boat setup so he can place his baits properly. Boat position and bait placement are crucial to his success and he will take the necessary time to get it right.

His basic rigs are heavy-action long rods with heavy reels. You can use either baitcasting or heavy spinning reels. However, be sure the tackle you use can withstand the pressure of huge fish in a river current situation, Bernard advised.

He uses heavy line, in the 50-pound-test category, with hooks in the 6/0 to 8/0 size. His favored bait will usually be a very large chunk of cut bait or whole fish. The night we fished, he had a diverse selection of bream, white perch, crappie and shad.

"All of these make excellent live or cut bait," he said.

He added that flatheads seem to prefer the live bait, blues the cut bait. But fresh cut bait will also take flatheads. He fan-casts around the boat with flatline rigs, using a heavy sinker to get the bait to the bottom and hold it there. The size of the sinker will vary with the amount of current and depth, so you may use anything from an ounce to several ounces of weight. Rods are positioned around the boat to cover areas that are both up and downstream of the boat, as well as out to the middle of the channel.

The night we fished, he used all of the above types of bait, plus he had a gizzard shad that weighed over a pound hooked on as bait in one whole chunk. That was a whopper of a bait that we figured only a behemoth catfish would inhale. That bait resulted in our first hookup of the evening, a monster fish that finally got off, but not before forcing Bernard to brace against the side of the boat as it ripped the drag off the reel at will.

Yes, there are some outlandish-sized fish in that river.

"I usually like to anchor the boat on the dropoff, the ledge that falls into the main-river channel. That way I can fish the top of the shelf, along the edge and along the bottom. These ledges seem to be the main travel route of the big fish," he said.

He'll give these fish plenty of time at each spot.