Surface-feeding fish offer a great opportunity at Lake Moultrie. Typically, this action occurs early and late in the day. However, it is not the only method I would rely upon for success.

Chasing the gulls for surface-feeding fish is one very popular method of fishing. Lake Moultrie is much more open in terms of trees and snags in the open water than her sister lake of Marion, where standing timber makes chasing stripers at full speed problematic. You still need to watch for shallow humps in some areas of Moultrie, but in general, this water is very conducive to chasing those surface-feeding, schooling fish. Flathead bucktails in the 3/4- and 1-ounce size are excellent baits, as are Striper Delights for surface-feeding fish.

When the fish are not active on the surface, use herring, shad or shiners as a live-bait offering. Use the wind to drift the offering over areas where you’ve marked plenty of forage fish on the graph. Often you can get into some outstanding striper fishing without ever seeing a fish break the surface or see a gull flying.

Typically, most guides will try to locate the forage over a dropoff, hump or underwater island. By pinpointing stripers on these identifiable underwater areas, they increase their clients’ odds of success and you can do the same thing for yourself. On the other hand, random searching and drifting in the open water of this huge lake is often unproductive for long periods.

On cloudy days, you can sometimes enjoy good “gull chasing” all day. On clear, cold bluebird-sky days, the stripers may still be caught; they just usually work on the shad in deeper water. Some local anglers have actually patterned this well enough that they sleep in on those cold mornings, then get out about the time the “gull watchers” are leaving. But they often return home with a limit of fish before the afternoon shift of gull watchers get out.

Regardless of where you live in South Carolina, you can get to one of these three lakes within a reasonable amount of time. A real plus is that despite the cold weather, the striper fishing action can be really hot. It’s quite common, on any of these lakes, to have multiple fish hooked at once.

As Chip Hamilton pointed out, “When you get on a school of wintertime stripers, the action can be all a boatload of fishermen can handle . . . and sometimes more.”

If that type of striper action is something that appeals to you, then now’s the time to get out and do it.