Carolina Crappie Association (Santee)

On a whim Tommy and I decided to join CCA. The group had a tourney slated for Santee this past Saturday so we thought there couldn't be a better lake to test the waters and see how we could do. A bunch of darn good fishermen competed and the top weights were close. We knew many of the fishermen, some by name, others by face. These guys and gals are tried and true tournament anglers with many wins and top finishes to their credit. I'll let Capps report the complete results, and will speak only of our teams catch and weight and techniques used.

Tommy had to work the past couple weeks straight and was unable to get out and look for any fish. That left it up to me to do the looking. I haven't had the chance to fish much either, the past couple weekends had me with family after a relative passed away one weekend, and a wedding on the other.

On Thursday I spent the majority of my time in shallow water. I caught a nice mess of fish, but not the size we were after. On Friday I went down the lake to explore some deeper brush, I caught fewer fish but the quality was much better. I talked to Tommy on Friday evening to set up our game plan. We decided we would set up a milk run of brush to keep us fishing and not riding and would start down the lake early.

We chose to vertically fish both jigs and minnows to see if one worked better than the other. It turned out to be a great move too, we caught equal amounts of fish on both.

We arrived at our first spot at 6:30 and waited for the sun to come up and 7:00 so we could start fishing. The conditions were beginning to deteriorate from the onset. We fished out of a jon boat, and the way the winds were picking up we knew it was going to get rough in the big, open water. After a dozen or so spots were quickly hit, we realized it wasn't going to happen in our location of choice.

We decided to make the choppy run back to calmer waters. We had 7 fish in the live well, but only one was a decent fish. We arrived in the creek at around 9:30. Most of the tournament anglers were in there as well. The first spot I pulled up on Tommy flipped his jig out and a thump was felt on the other end. He set the hook only to have a nice crappie roll up on top and spit the hook. No more bites on that spot, so we moved on. The next brush we doubled up on nice fish and it was pretty much catching the remainder of the day.

We ended the day with around 75 crappie caught. We were culling 1.25 pound fish for most of the afternoon, but just couldn't land that one kicker fish that so often makes the difference in any tournament. We finished our day with 7 fish that weighed in at 10.68 pounds for a 1.52 pound average. We finished in 5th place about a half pound out of first. One two pounder would have made all the difference in the world, but we just couldn't get that one bite.

We had a great time, enjoyed the camaraderie of the fellow anglers, and won enough money to cover expenses. Thanks to Capps, and all who assisted for putting on a fine event. No pics were taken on the day, but here's a couple taken of Friday's fish.

Attachment 176167

Here's a couple of two pound plus fish caught on Friday.

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Friday's cooler shot.

Good report, thanks for sharing.

Very good report Tim and congrats to you and Tommy on the 5th place finish. Saturday would have been a hard day to day as the winds picked up. Good job on finding the biting fish.

Nice catch Tim and Tommy and congrads on your 5 th place finish and thanks for sharing

Good job guys. Congrats on at least placing in the money. Fridays catch was pretty impressive too.

Congratulations to you and Tommy on 5th place! Glad y'all had a great time. That's a nice mess you got Friday! Thanks for sharing.

Great report and pictures as always Tim. Thats a great couple days of fishing and I'm glad to hear yall were able to find some fish good enough for a 5th place finish. Sounds awesome!

Great job.

thanks for sharing the story and pics Ink === hope you go to first next time