Crappie are really starting to bunch up right now making them easy to catch. Most fish seem to be on brush in 18-25 ft range. The last couple of weeks ive really started to check a lot of brush piles and have and seeing some massive schools of big crappie just waiting to eat a minnow or jig! The crappie fishing will be very good for the next couple months with fish preparing to spawn in Early April.
Lake Water temp is 45-46.
Crappie are really starting to bunch up right now making them easy to catch. Most fish seem to be on brush in 18-25 ft range. The last couple of weeks ive really started to check a lot of brush piles and have and seeing some massive schools of big crappie just waiting to eat a minnow or jig! The crappie fishing will be very good for the next couple months with fish preparing to spawn in Early April.
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fishing actually has been pretty good. Water temps are pretty cold right now as a whole. Meaning slow your presentation down. Don't move fast use smaller baits and you can put some great catches together! There is a lot of 48-52 Degree water, but in a certain place there is up to 70 degree water and along with that some hot fishing! Creeks with stained water will warm up quicker than clear water. One degree in the fish world is a big deal. find the warm water and you may find some active fish.
Jocassee: Trout are being caught along with bass and some large yellow perch Keowee: Spotted Bass are biting very good Hartwell: Stripers, Hybrids, Crappie and Bass can all be caught in one day! Lake Hartwell has been fishing great for me this winter! Ive been on them all winter! This weekend was horable fishing conditions for winter fishing with high winds and fridge temps. For me it didn't seem to matter what the weater was... the fishing was great, actually Sunday I had one of the best days all winter even in the high winds. I felt pretty lucky that I could hid frome the wind and catch fish. I have been noticing that the fish have been a little more sluggish due to the cold water, but Ive been lucky to be on some big bodies of fish that picking away a good number of bites hasn't been too much of a prob. It is a little more of a patient bite in the winter. Slow down everything, fish smaller baits and you will put more fish in the boat. Good depths to look... 20-45 have been good for me. The birds also have been working fish great for me this winter. Look for gulls and then start using your graph. Bait is also a key. If you find both the gulls and a large consintration of Bait, odds are the stripers are close. Water temp has been cold...48 degrees... and yes all these fish have been caught on live bait! Water temp: 48 degrees. Fishing has actually been great up on Lake Jocassee this winter. Now we are catching big numbers of what we call Stockers. These fish are 12-14 inches on average with a few making it over 15 inches. Now what we are all looking for up there are those trophy class fish which have been biting as well. I have been very sucessfull in the backs of the rivers using med shinners or small blue back herring on downrods from 30-60 foot. Now you wont fill the boat with these big fish making a patient wait and fishing for those handfull of bites. More or less saying those big fish will only give you a few shots in a day if any, but if you capitolize and hook and land this fish, it may be the biggest trout of your life. As far as trolling, the main lake has been producing some really large fish. Ive seen some fish go over 7 lbs this winter with a few friends catching a few over 8 and one over 10. Those are studs of trout for anywhere in the country. fishing due to go off the hook in Jocassee standards as the water starts to warm!
By: Phillip Gentry Capt. Steve Pietrykowski said that the colder and nastier the weather gets on Lake Jocassee, the better the fish like it. Lake Jocassee was established back in the early 1970s as a trophy trout fishery. Anglers fished for trout in the spring, then moved elsewhere to fish the rest of the year. But over time, savvy trout fishermen discovered that trolling tactics that were popular up in the northern states, using downrigger balls and flutter spoons, also worked well on the deep mountain lake. “Nowadays, people believe the only way to catch trout in this lake is by trolling a bunch of hardware, using downriggers and spoons and heavy tackle,” said guide Steve Pietrykowski of Fishki Business Charters in Seneca. “That stuff works – I do it all the time – but during the winter when the water temperatures are at their coldest, trout don’t have to hold at 100 feet. We can catch them on live bait, using light tackle, anywhere from 20 to 40 feet deep.” Pietrykowski’s target area during the winter is backwards from what most anglers look for. He heads to the far end of a creek where the water depths rise from more than 100 feet up to what is considered a shallow flat at Jocassee: 30 feet of water. “The wind has been blowing pretty steady into the backs of these rivers with that last front,” said Pietrykowski (864-353-3438). “The baitfish are already back here, and the weather has packed them into the ends of the creeks. I’m hoping we can catch us a good trout right off the bat.” Pietrykowski broke out several light-action crappie rods outfitted with tiny No. 4 hooks and stinger treble hooks. He opened the lid to his 40-gallon bait tank and scooped out a small blueback herring, one of nearly 10 dozen he had netted earlier from nearby Lake Keowee. He hooked the bait through the nose with the main hook and impaled the tiny treble stinger near the tail. That done, he flipped the split-shot rig 25 feet beyond the moored boat, letting the bait sink slowly in the water. Through the course of the morning, the live bait accounted for more than two-dozen rainbow and brown trout, stockers that were immediately released, plus a handful of fat spotted and largemouth bass trying to push five pounds before spring arrives, and two nice browns – one just over, the other just under 20 inches. As of Hartwell, over all for January the fishing has been pretty good. Now we have had a little rain and a few weather fronts that have pushed through since the new year and that has mixed things up a little. As for water temps last week I recorded 45-47 degrees, now the last few days I have seen 52-58 degrees. Now that is surface temps. It is still chilly down 20 and 30 feet. Trolling umbrella riggs early in the main river channels has been working well, but as the sun comes up keep an eye in the sky for the little white gulls working a specific area. If you see birds that just wont leave an area, that means there are fish feeding somewhere close. Try fan casting small jigs or if you mark fish on the fish finder try a jigging spoon at the same depth the fish are. I also throw free lines out behind the boat and have been picking stripers up.
- Jocassee has been great for January. We are catching good numbers of trout from 15-40 feet on both live bait and Spoons. As of keeper fish, most of the fish are under 15 inches, but a few fish have tipped the scales in the 4-6 pound range which is a better than average trout! Tight lines. Capt. Steve 864-353-3438 |
Call Capt. Steve: 864-353-3438
About the Capt.
Capt. Steve is a Registered US Coast Guard Capt. Being 32 years old, Capt Steve has made a living fishing for over 12 years. Capt. Steve has logged many hours on the US and International waters fishing for Salmon in the rivers of Alaska down to the Florida Keys after Sailfish and over to the Bahamas Blue Marlin fishing. Archives
July 2014
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