Lake Murray Report 3/7 and 3/8

With the good looking forecast this past weekend I couldn't help but find some time for fishing! We had orginally planned to fish the Crappie Masters event on Greenwood Saturday, but neither me nor my fishing partner had a chance to prefish so we opted to do a little fishing closer to the house.

Saturday morning I invited a buddy of mine to go and we dropped the boat in the water at daybreak. It had been several weeks since I had been on the water so I was in search mode most of the trip. We tightlined and jigged till lunch time and although we marked a lot of fish we had struggled to get bites. We caught around 15 crappie and a mess of perch. We didn't catch many "slabs," but we brought home a nice mess of fish for him and his family. It was a beautiful day for fishing and we just enjoyed the time together on the water. Being that the fish are on the move right now, tightlining proved far better than jigging. Fish were caught in 10-20 FOW with most bites coming 10-12 foot down. No single color proved better than others, but we got more pull downs from tipping with minnows than without.

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Sunday morning I was back at it solo. With a half a day's searching under my belt from Saturday I decided to slow down and hammer some areas where I found fish the day before. I set up shop at safe light and pounded away. The bite was slow, but pretty consistent. Fish seemed to be shallower first thing and move deeper as the sun got high. It took me till 1 PM, but I finally managed to finish out a limit of solid keepers. Fished seemed to be holding tight to the river ledge most of the day in 13-15 FOW but I did catch a few stragglers in the middle of the run over 20 FOW.

The most exciting part of the day was a pull down around 9:00 AM. One of my poles started singing and I struggled to get it out of the holder. 45 min later I was able to land my new personal best kitty kat...31.6#. The scales I had in the boat couldn't weigh her so I had to break out some digital scales we use for deer. It was quite a battle on a 12-ft crappie pole and 6-lb test. It was a game of inches with a lot more taking than I was getting for most of the fight.

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All in all, it was a fantastic weekend of fishing and I can't wait to get back out there again!

CB

Sounds like you had a great weekend on the lake, congrats on that big ole mud kitty!

Nice crappie and kitty! I use to catfish a lot and a guide told me a secret one day while I was camping and wasn't having much luck. He said take a threadfin, filet it and cut each filet in half. I did what he said that evening and caught the most and the biggest fish I had ever caught in my life at the time. Biggest was 53lbs. Ever since when I catfish, which isn't much unless I want a stew, I fish small pieces of bait. I try to tell people but they say the bigger the bait the bigger the fish!
I imagine you caught the cat on a minner and that proves my point. You don't need big bait to catch big fish.

It does look like you had a great weekend of fishing. Nice crappie and a hugh cat! Unbelieveable that you got to land such a beast on a crappie rod. Congrats.:)

That is a nice un ! .Way to stay on it for the limit of slabs. Thanks for the pics.

Thats a good cat fish! You done good landing it on a crappie rod.

Way to go Derrick! The lake looks fantastic, love those early morning pics. Congrats on the nice mess of crappie and the new PB Cat. My PB is 33 pounds on a 14 foot pole, I know that was quite the battle, glad you came out on top.

CB congrats on your new PB cat, had to be real fun fighting that on 6lb line. Enjoyed reading the report and enjoyed the pics.

Congratulations on your PB catfish! That had to be one heck of a fight. Congratulations on your other mess of fish as well. Thanks for the report and pics.

nice job buddy. jeremy and I did not start until around 10am sunday. it was slow. ended up keeping 13 decent crappie. threw back probably 20-25 little ones. did manage to keep 4 of the largest perch that I have ever caught. all were well over 1 lb. bet that cat was a ball to fight.

Wow! That's a huge fish especially on a long rod with 6 lbs test line. I'm impressed, Great Job!

Great looking catch! I bet it was a lot of fun getting that big cat in. I had a similar experience with a nice-sized striper about a month ago. 14' rod with 6 lb. line. I finally wore him out and was able to boat him.

Nice catch Derrick and congratulations on your personel best kitty.

Good job Derrick. I need to come up your way and fish. I like the way the water looks, reminds me of Santee. Good job on the Cat, I don't think he would have fit in my net. I got one at Clouds Creek that went about 28 lbs., but I was dragging a shiner behind the boat on a bait caster while I was tight lining. Took me a while even with the heavier outfit to get him in the boat.