Three timer Santee/Cooper River

With the first truly pretty weekend of the year, and me home alone, I managed to squeeze in three fishing trips and one other surprise. On Thursday I got up early and headed to the lake to cast to the trees for stripers for a while. It started a bit slow, but I finally figured where a few were hiding and managed to catch 13. I find it odd how the DNR can issue slot limits on lakes and the ones you catch will always fall just under that size. On Wateree the size limit is 18 inches, most fish that are caught are 15 to 17. On Murray the limit is 21 inches and the ones most often caught are 19 to 20. And on Santee where the size limit is 26 inches, every fish caught fell between 23 and 25 inches, no keepers, but great fun none the less. After the striper action I headed into a creek to try the crappie fishing out. I ran into Mr. Gerald Cromer while on the water and we exchanged pleasantries before parting ways. Brush fishing again was very slow, I switched to the shallow water trees and found the fish again willing to bite. I ended up with a decent limit before heading home. On Friday, I chose to do a repeat performance of the day before, only problem was that Mother Nature wanted to throw a wrench into my plans by turning the fan on high. The winds were howling when I got to the lake that morning which wiped out the striper fishing plans. I headed back into the creek to try the crappie, they weren't to eager to eat either. I beat around for a while ending up with 17 before heading home. On Saturday I met up with my buddy Tommy to head towards the coast to try a little long line trolling action around the Cooper river area. The bite started a bit slow, but we were able to find some biting fish in some shallow water and limited out on both crappie and bream/shell cracker. We ended up with nearly a box and half of 3/4 to pound size fish. The shallow fish were caught vertical jigging a pink/white/ green Rooty Tooty 309's in 2 feet of water. The fish caught trolling fell pray to black/blue/green Kalins on 1/16th heads, they were in 5 feet of water. Water temps ranged from mid 60's to 73 degrees.

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Me with one of the better shallow water fish.

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One of the 13 striper caught.

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A pretty black fish caught from under a tree.

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Some of Saturday's crappie.

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Tommy bringing one in.

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The Bream and Shellcracker caught trolling on Saturday.

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And for the surprise, and best catch of the weekend was this beautiful 9.1 pound grand son.

Congratulations Tim and Tommy on the fishing trips, a really nice mess of fish. Tim, congratulations with the new grandson!! Give him a few years and I'm sure he is going to be your 2nd partner. I hope mother and son are doing well. Thanks for the report and pics. Again congratulations on the new grandson!!

Looks like your days off turned out just right! Congrats on the fishing AND the new addition to the family.:) I hope everyone is doing fine.

Life is soooooo good for ya!! Congrats on the grandson! :-)

Ink,
as always congrats to you and Tommy on some quality fish and awesome pictures !!! and a Big CONGRATS on your grandson !!! :ThumbsUp

Man that brings back memories of when I was stationed at shaw afb. Most fun I have ever had fishing was fishing for striper during the May fly hatch around the Cyprus trees. Can't beat catching them suckers on top water plugs. Have to get back and do that again sometime

Congrats Tim & Tommy on some quality fish caught. I know you enjoyed your time on the water....but it pales in comparison to the feeling in that last shot. Big congrats on the arrival of a healthy grandson!!!!! He will bring you a lot of joy! Congrats again to the parents and the proud PAPA!

Congratulations on the arrival of your grandson!
Looks like you and Tommy had a great weekend of catching some nice fish, crappie and shellcrackers . Hard to top the weekend you had, congrats.

It just doesn't get any better than that!!! Three great fishing trips and a new fishing partner all in the same weekend. Congratulations!!!!!

Good way to spend 3 days Tim. Sounds like a mixed bag of fish and a lot of fun. And like others said, a new fishing partner in the making. I know you will enjoy teaching him to fish. I got a 2 year old Grandson that I am waiting to get on the water. My older ones still like to go, but they are teenagers and other things are on their mind.

Congratulations! I think that grandson is over the slot limit :)

That got a chuckle out of me, thanks for all the well wishes guys. The baby and mama are doing great.

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Originally Posted by dennisafields

Congratulations! I think that grandson is over the slot limit :)

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Congratulations ink. Forget the fishing you have caught enough of those that it takes the backseat to that little boy. My son is 18 months now and I have been impatiently waiting on his time on the water since he was your grandsons age. In fact last weekend he cost me a lot of money buying a boat I felt more comfortable with him being in than my key west. Again congrats you will enjoy

Ink, it was good to see and chat with you Thursday. Everuyone Ink was doing what he does best when we ran into him...Catching Fish....We never did hit pay dirt, but the ones that we did have were really nice one. I think the shellcrackers were close to a pound. Where I came out from, about 20 years ago we really killed them back there on a Good Friday. That area has been good to me years ago, but these last couple of trips, it all new to me now...

Great pics Mr. C, the fishing should continue to get better in those areas over the next month or so. The fish seem to be running a few weeks behind on Santee this year.