Bill Garner holds up a fresh example of Wateree crappie taken on a jig in the early season. Photo by Terry Madewell.

Crappie fishing in South Carolina is generally right where fishermen and fisheries biologists want it to be: outstanding throughout the state. After an excellent spring fishing season in 2006 at many lakes around the state, any effects of the long-term drought of a few years ago seem to be gone. According to several SCDNR fisheries biologists and technicians, the much improved water conditions in the past couple of years have provided excellent spawning opportunities in most lakes. That combined with water conditions suitable for successful fishing during the spring has seen crappie catches rebound from a couple of off years. Overall, the fishing is great at most lakes.

"From a big picture, statewide, perspective, it's difficult to single out one or two lakes, when the overall picture is so good," said Val Nash, Chief of Freshwater Fisheries for the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR). "But there are always some lakes that seem to be ideal for crappie fishing."

Nash agreed that some of the lakes that are traditional crappie hotpots include lakes Wateree, Greenwood and Russell. However, he is quick to point out that many other lakes will provide outstanding crappie fishing during the spring of 2007. He noted that as always, the local weather conditions during the spring can cause the fish-catching conditions to change, but the crappie population is good enough throughout the state that with decent weather, fishermen should be in crappie heaven in 2007.

We'll take a closer look at each of the above-named lakes and explore how to fish each one successfully. We'll consider the best lures and baits for success and the structure patterns of where the fish are likely to be found.

LAKE WATEREE
Bill Garner lives near Lake Wateree and is on the lake several times a week from the end of deer season in January, until it's time to re-work his deer stands in the summer. According to Garner, the 2006 season was outstanding and he thinks the 2007 season may be one of the best in years.

"I caught crappie of all sizes in 2006, in big numbers. That lets me know we've got a great overall population of fish in the lake and I'm really excited about the 2007 season. In addition, we caught a lot of really big crappie last year, with a number of fish topping 3 pounds and many, many slabs over 2 pounds each. A lot of fishermen don't realize how many slab crappie are in this lake," Garner said.

"I think a lot of fishermen know Lake Wateree is a good lake for numbers of fish, and it certainly is. But if you're patient and work the right places in the right manner, there's a lot of huge fish that are caught from the lake as well," Garner added.

According to Garner, the water temperature, depth and speed are keys for finding fish during the early spring at Lake Wateree.

"A lot of fishermen try to rush the spawning season and fish the shallows too early. Plus, they tend to fish too fast while the water temperature is still too cold," Garner noted.

We witnessed what he called a good example of that last spring. There were several boats working the same dropoff he was. He knew most of the fishermen and he knew that most of them were fishing the right depths with the right rigs. However, they were simply moving too fast.

"They would ease by my boat as they trolled along with their electric motors and were only catching occasional fish. Typically, they were not catching a lot of big fish either," he said.

He caught a nice limit of fish in about three hours, including two fish in the 3-pound class from the same place.

"The only thing I was doing different was fishing much slower," he said. "When the water is still cool in the early season, you've got to slow the lure presentation down a great deal. By doing this, you'll not only catch more numbers of fish, but you'll hook into some of those huge slabs as well."