Santee Trip 9/8/16-9/10/16

This past weekend we made a trip to Santee for a good friend's bachelor party. Man, did we have fun!! We had a total group of 15 and folks came from everywhere...Texas, New York, Louisiana. Most of the crowd came in on Friday, but having the house Thursday night I couldn't resist going down for some pre party fishing. I've never fished the lake this time of year but I knew I'd be jigging to make things simple. The biggest problem with Santee that I've found is that EVERYTHING looks fishy. Especially if you are jigging. It's by far the prettiest body of water I've ever fished.

Me and a buddy left the house at 5:30 and after a few stops for gas and ice we arrived at the landing a little before 8 AM. We dropped the boat in the water and started fishing right away. On the second drop I made I felt that tell-tell thump and boated our first crappie! We kept on the move and not every stop produced but a lot of them did. We wound up catching 50-60 crappie, but most weren't big enough to make the cut. We kept a nice mess of 19 crappie and a couple bonus fish. I couldn't have been more satisfied! The best depth of water I found was 5-6 foot and the best color on the day was john deere green.

I fished around for a few hours near our house Friday and Saturday and never did find anymore crappie. We caught a few bream, but nothing to speak of size wise. We did manage a mess of cats off the dock at night, but the highlight of the weekend had to be Saturday night. A buddy of mine drew a gator tag for the area and season came in Saturday so we figured we would give it a try. It was a first for most of us, but we did have one fella in the boat that had filled a tag a few years back so we weren't going in completely green. As expected, we saw a lot of gators, but finding one we thought we could manage and one that would allow us to get close enough for us to make a move was difficult, but after a few hours the plan came together. We ended up filling his tag with a 5.25 ft gator. Now, that may seem small to most, but for a first gator to get our feet wet it was perfect. And he wasn't the easiest creature to wrestle with either!! LOL But, we were able to get him in the boat safe and sound and it was quite the experience. I'd definitely go again, but I can tell you that I prefer hooking aquatic wildlife that don't have so many teeth!!!

It was a very successful and memorable weekend for everyone involved. I'm still trying to recover from all the fun, but it was well worth it!

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Sounds like a GREAT weekend Derrick. I bet it was a BLAST.:) BTW, in that next to the last picture....I can only WISH we had water that color around here. Congrats on all the fish caught and to the lucky hunter with his gator.

Wow looks like a great time with the guys. Having the crappie bite as soon as you hit the water is a special time and those pictures are great and tells the story of a good time. Thanks for the report and congrats on the trip to Santee!

Congratulations on a fine trip. Catching a mess of fish was a good hi lite of the trip. That gator topped it of. Enjoyed the pictures and thanks for sharing.

Great report Derek. When you first mentioned gator hunting I thought ya'll would be the group that got the 12.5 ft gator that came out of Santee this weekend.
Sounds like a fun weekend. What part of the lake were you in?

Awesome sounding and looking trip.
Congrats and thanks for sharing.

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Originally Posted by SeaRay

Great report Derek. When you first mentioned gator hunting I thought ya'll would be the group that got the 12.5 ft gator that came out of Santee this weekend.
Sounds like a fun weekend. What part of the lake were you in?

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We were staying in Taw Caw creek Ray.

Glad y'all had a good time Derek. That's 2 things on my bucket list i want do, fishing Santee and gator hunting. Don't you use a bow first and get up to the boat? That had to be fun. Did he get the gator processed? I heard it was good. Thanks for sharing.

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Originally Posted by Eatmorecrappie

Glad y'all had a good time Derek. That's 2 things on my bucket list i want do, fishing Santee and gator hunting. Don't you use a bow first and get up to the boat? That had to be fun. Did he get the gator processed? I heard it was good. Thanks for sharing.

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I reckon there's two ways of going about getting a gator to the boat. A bow or with a rod and reel. We had both, but we were able to get close enough to get a shot with the bow. We had the rod with a large treble hook at the ready to snag him if need be, but the bow was all we needed. He went into a death roll and pretty well subdued himself along side the boat. They have to secured before the kill shot is made. Once we tired him out and after plenty of "choot em!!" phrases were shouted out, we were able to finish him off with a handgun. It was a learning experience for sure. Hopefully, it won't be our last time trying to fill a tag.

We didn't take him to a processor. We skinned him ourself. One of our buddies spent some time in school in Louisiana and had a roommate who gator hunted down there. Through those experiences he knew how to skin one and it was a lengthy process, but it turned out good. Really wasn't much different than skinning a deer to be honest. Just a lot tougher hide.


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