Guide Rodger Taylor with a hefty -- but not unusual -- blue catfish taken from Lake Wateree. Photo by Terry Madewell.

Cold weather catfishing has become popular and very productive, especially for blue catfish. For many years, catfish anglers have worked the Santee Cooper lakes of Marion and Moultrie during the winter to make outstanding catfish catches. Most years, by Christmas time, the catfish action is very good and getting better as the water temperature continues to drop.

Make no mistake, the Christmas catfishing is still good at these two lakes. But there's another wintertime catfish opportunity that's now producing big catches of huge blue catfish. It's Lake Wateree and the secret of the sensational catfishing on this lake is out.

Specifically, the lake is becoming known for the trophy sizes of the blue catfish it is producing. According to professional guide Rodger Taylor, owner of Catfish ON! Guide Service (www.catfishon.com, 803/328-9587), winter is the best time to pursue and catch these huge fish.

"During the winter, the blue catfish, more so than other catfish species, tend to migrate upriver," Taylor said. "When they do, they concentrate in big numbers in the upper end of Lake Wateree. What this does is put a lot of big catfish in a fairly confined area. The key is to figure out how, when and where to fish for these huge catfish. When you do, the odds of hooking into a 20- to 40-pound blue catfish are pretty good."

Taylor noted that the top end weight of these big blue beasts is still going up at Lake Wateree. Before 2007, his personal best was 58 pounds on Lake Wateree. He caught one weighing in at 60 pounds this past season, his largest so far. However, he knows of other catfish even larger that have been caught.

"I think these fish are just now really taking off in Lake Wateree," he said. "I know I'm seeing more and more blue catfish of all sizes every year. But in the past few years, a lot of really big catfish have been caught. When fishing for trophy catfish there's never any guarantee of success. But the odds of my clients hooking up with catfish 25 pounds and larger during the winter is pretty good.

"I believe the top end weight of these fish will rival lakes Marion and Moultrie," Taylor said. "Those lakes are a premier catfish fishery, but so is this one."

This claim is supported by Robert Stroud, a fisheries biologist with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR). Stroud works out of the Region II office, which oversees Lake Wateree along with many other lakes.

"We have not done a creel survey including blue catfish on Lake Wateree in the past few years," Stroud said. "However, past creel data, which ended in 2003, showed a striking increase in the blue catfish population for the three years of that study. Also, we are doing a Shad Population Dynamics study on Lake Wateree right now. Shad are a primary diet of the blue catfish and the shad base at Lake Wateree is very strong."

However the blues got there, they found a very friendly habitat for big catfish.

"We don't know how the blue catfish got into Lake Wateree," Stoud said. "We did not stock them. But they are there and doing extremely well. I can't say that Lake Wateree will surpass the Santee Cooper lakes on top end weight of blue catfish. But I do believe it may eventually rival those lakes. The blue catfish is certainly doing well in this lake."

Whether blue catfish were supposed to be in Lake Wateree or not, they are there. Rodger Taylor has fished Lake Wateree for the big blues for several years and has learned how to hook these fish regularly.

"This lake is an ideal setting for blue catfish," Taylor begins. "Of course, Lake Wateree and the Wateree River empty into Lake Marion, where blue catfish have grown to outlandish sizes for years. There's a great forage base of shad in this lake and the blue catfish are growing to huge sizes very fast.

Right now in December, and into January and continuing through March will be the peak time to catch the super-sized blue catfish at Lake Wateree. Taylor and I fished the upper end of the lake, his favored area for cold weather, and caught three big blues while fishing only a few hours one cold morning. The three fish weighed 25, 35 and 45 pounds.

That's a great day of wintertime catfishing anywhere on planet Earth.