Captain Rodger Taylor (803-517-7828) had seen that the catfish bite on Lake Wateree on was good, but after his most recent trips this past weekend he says it is time to upgrade the bite to “very good” – particularly when some wind is blowing.  Fish in the 8-20 pound range are feeding very well, and there is certainly the possibility to hook into a bigger one.  On one windy drift the bite was so hot that they caught nine quality fish in 45 minutes!

First thing in the morning Rodger has been anchoring up the river channel in hopes of a monster, but that bite has not been very good.  However, moving down to the middle 1/3 of the lake they have picked up some good fish anchoring just out from creek mouths and fishing over and around humps that rise to about 10 feet surrounded by 14-15 feet of water.

When the wind gets up, however, the bite really comes alive, and when Rodger saw waves and a little pitch to the water he knew it would be on.  Again, the mid-lake has been most productive for drifting with the 20-35 foot range working the best.  Drifting the lower lake around Colonel Creek has been a bit less productive, but some good 8-10 pound fish are feeding in that area.  Overall fish are relatively scattered out and not glued to the river channel, but they are clumped up in little pods where doubles are common.  Everything on Rodger’s boat is being caught on gizzard shad, but he would turn to white perch as a distant second choice if he had to.

When the wind dies down anglers can go back to anchoring, but the more productive path is probably to keep on drifting under trolling motor power.  That’s still not as good as when wind and waves are churning the water, and if the wind had kept blowing and he didn’t have to turn to trolling motor power Rodger speculates that they would have run out of bait last weekend!

Lake Wateree is at 97.6% of full pool.