Fishing the Santee Cooper Lakes: Complete Angler’s Guide

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In fishing circles, certain lakes are household names no matter where in America you live. The Santee Cooper Lakes are two of them.

Consisting of 110,000-acre Lake Marion and 60,400-acre Lake Moultrie, the Santee Cooper Lakes are legendary fishing destinations that consistently rank among the best lakes in America for largemouth bass, stripers, catfish and crappie.

This complete angling guide will show you how, when and where to catch them.

Santee Cooper Lakes Lowdown

These two lakes offer an immense amount of water, and they are positively loaded with fish-attracting cover, including timber, stumps and shorelines ringed with cypress swamps. 

The Santee Cooper Lakes were created with the damming of the Santee and Cooper Rivers from 1939 to 1942.

While the two lakes are similar, there are a few key differences between the two when it comes to fishing. 

Lake Marion is above Lake Moultrie on the Santee Cooper system.

In addition to being the larger of the two lakes, Marion has the more typical reservoir structure, with a generally elongated shape that follows the former course of the Santee River. 

As such, it has a well-defined river channel that mostly hugs the lake’s southern shoreline. Lake Marion also has a vast, shallow, swampy area at its upper end, which consists of numerous channels and sloughs lined with cypress trees. 

Lake Marion also contains a lot of flooded timber. While the upper end of the reservoir is dotted with trees that grow above the surface, the lower end has extensive areas where timber extends from the bottom to just below the surface at normal pool. 

Lake Moultrie is often compared to a big, open bowl. Compared to Lake Marion, its underwater landscape looks less like a typical reservoir’s structure and more like a rolling area of hills and valleys, which is exactly what it was before it was flooded. 

Another noteworthy feature is that unlike Lake Marion, where timber was left standing, Lake Moultrie was cleared before being filled. Thus, it has no standing timber but has mile after mile of stump fields.

Lake Moultrie’s shoreline, in many places, is a jungle of cypress and tupelo trees and includes numerous “ponds” and backwaters that are, in many cases, only barely connected to the main lake.

In addition to the lakes, the Santee Cooper System includes a few other waterways that anglers should be aware of. Chief among them are the Diversion Canal, which connects the lower end of Lake Marion to the upper end of Lake Moultrie, and the Rediversion Canal, which connects Lake Moultrie to the Santee River.

Largemouth Bass Fishing

The Santee Cooper Lakes are undoubtedly two of the best bass lakes in the Southeast. Both lakes produce excellent numbers of largemouth bass and very real trophy potential.

Lake Marion produced South Carolina’s state record largemouth, a 16-pound, 2-ounce monster, way back in 1949. That record may never be toppled, but both lakes are more than capable of kicking out a 10-pounder at any time.

The best overall season to fish for bass on the Santee Cooper Lakes is spring, and the earliest part of the season is when anglers often catch the biggest bass of the year. Because the lakes are so massive, the spawn is a long, drawn-out process spanning many months. 

Expect bass to be in some stage of the spawn from February through May. If you’re looking for trophies, February and early March are your best bets.

Lake Marion warms up first, especially at its shallow upper end, and that’s where bass will start to become active soonest. 

Areas like Pack’s Flats, Elliott’s Flats and Jack’s Creek are key early bass spots on Lake Marion, and local guides often use live shiners on circle hooks—a tactic borrowed from Florida bass hunters—to tempt fat pre-spawn females.

Early-season fishing isn’t much of a numbers game, and a cold front can shut it down in a heartbeat. But the fishing picks up as we get into April, with bass moving shallow in waves throughout both lakes over the course of the month. 

When the spawn is in full swing, bass will usually be tight to cover in shallow water. You have a lot of options here, as Lake Marion and Moultrie are both loaded with shallow grass beds, stump fields, cypress swamps and vast swaths of lily pads.

Focusing on coves, sloughs and backwaters is a good bet during the spawn. The Duck Pond area of Lake Moultrie, a backwater encircled by cypress trees and connected by only a single small opening to the main lake, is one such spot. 

The Rim Canal near the hatchery and the aptly-named Stumpy Point are a couple of other good spots. Texas rigs, jigs, creatures and wacky worms are all great lures this time of year. 

By May, most bass are in post-spawn feeding mode, and they’ll key in on shad, which spawn prolifically in shallow water this month. Locate shad, and bass will be nearby.

The best bite is usually early in the morning, and a Zoom Fluke is sure to draw some strikes. 

As the lakes warm up in summer, bass slide down long, sloping points, which they use as transition areas between deep and shallow water. Even in summer, you don’t usually have to go super deep here. 

Some of the best summer bass fishing is around brush piles in 6 to 10 feet of water. The most productive brush piles are on humps and points with deeper water nearby. Try a topwater that makes some noise. 

Fall is a good time to look for bass in Lake Marion’s creeks. This tactic continues to be a good approach through winter, as creeks often hold warmer water than the main lake. Potato Creek and Taw Caw Creek are a couple of good ones.

Try bottom-bumping lures like plastic worms.

Catch More Bass

While the Santee Cooper Lakes offer fantastic bass fishing, they aren’t the only games in town. Is your favorite on our list of South Carolina’s top bass lakes and rivers?

Also, make sure you’re ready to catch them with our simple bass fishing techniques and tips that get the job done.

Striper Fishing

Striped bass migrate up the Santee and Cooper rivers every year, and when Santee Cooper Power and Navigation Project created lakes Marion and Moultrie between 1939 and 1942, some of those stripers got stuck on the wrong side of the dam. 

So began one of America’s great landlocked striper fisheries. In the many decades since, the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) has stocked the Santee Cooper Lakes with millions more stripers. The fishery continues to thrive. 

The stripers in the Santee Cooper Lakes also reproduce naturally, staging a spawning run of their own every winter and spring up into the Santee River and the two rivers that form it: the Congaree and the Wateree. 

On the lakes themselves, prime striper fishing begins on October 1—the season opener following the summer closure that starts on June 15—and continues throughout the winter months until stripers head upriver in March. 

Fall offers excellent fishing on both lakes.

Anglers highly anticipate this season, not just because they have been waiting for it all summer. It’s also when stripers are most likely to school in open water, following massive schools of shad.  

When that happens, the action can be so good that most local anglers forego live bait and throw basic offerings like bucktails, spoons and soft jerkbaits. Hundred-fish days are possible, with many measuring right around the 26-inch minimum length limit.

Finding the fish can be tricky. Your best bets are to mark fish on your electronics or watch the surface for the commotion caused by feeding stripers. Circling gulls are often a telltale sign.

When you can find no visible sign of stripers, look for them above Lake Moultrie’s many, many submerged humps or among the forests of standing timber beneath Lake Marion’s surface.

Another key spot is the diversion canal that connects the two lakes and areas of both lakes near the canal.

As the weather turns colder, stripers increasingly favor deeper water. That includes areas near both lakes’ dams and at deep creek mouths. Lake Marion’s Wyboo Creek is a winter favorite.

During December, stripers usually transition from surface feeding to chasing shad deeper. There may be great surface action early in the month, but by New Year’s, the best tactics are drifting and vertically fishing live bait. 

In late winter and early spring, stripers start to sense the changing seasons and shift into pre-spawn mode. Once again, areas in and around the diversion canal are excellent as stripers from Lake Moultrie migrate through the canal into Lake Marion and toward the upper Santee River.

After spawning, stripers return to the lakes in May. This season provides some great fishing, starting at the upper end of Lake Marion and expanding across both lakes until the season closes back down on June 15.

Catfish Fishing

The fishing for some species peaks during certain seasons on the Santee Cooper Lakes. Think largemouths in spring or stripers in fall.

But catfish offer excellent fishing year-round, with opportunities to catch all of the “big three” species: channel catfish, blue catfish and flathead catfish. 

If you had to pick one season, it would probably be summer, when catfish have finished spawning and feed actively all over both lakes. Anglers often catch bigger trophy cats in winter, but numbers are unbeatable in summer. 

From June through August, catfish go where bait goes, and you can use your electronics to mark schools of shad. The lower ends of both lakes are good places to start, with Moultrie being easier to fish because of its lack of snaggy standing timber.

Moultrie also offers an incredible range of habitats, with hundreds of submerged humps formed by flooded hills and valleys. Key areas usually have deep and shallow water close together.

Flats near the diversion canal are also great in summer, especially when there’s some current present, as there usually is this time of year.

Cut bait on a Santee rig—yep, these lakes are so good there’s a rig named after them—is the way to go.

Another good thing about summer is that cats are active day and night. That being said, the best approach and location changes depending on which side of sunset you’re on.

Some local guides will start out drift fishing live bait from late afternoon through the evening and then switch to anchoring and covering a more specific area after dark. This approach works exceptionally well in and around the diversion canal. 

Don’t make too many assumptions about depth this time of year. The 15- to 30-foot range is usually about right, but you might find fish as deep as 40 feet during the day or in less than 5 feet of water at night.

Once fall rolls around, the shallow bite can be especially good. Stump fields at the upper end of Lake Marion are often very productive in October. 

And let’s not forget about catfish in winter, either. Anglers land some of the biggest blue cats between November and February.

As in summer, the best cold-weather areas are major topographic changes, but the overall depth is generally deeper this time of year. 

Depths between 20 and 50 feet are typically best in November, and by Christmas time, most of the big catfish will have followed baitfish into even deeper areas near both lakes’ dams. Expect to find the 75-pound-plus monsters as deep as 65 feet.

Springtime brings back a general shift toward shallow water as the lakes warm up.

Some of the best places this time of year are shallow clam and mussel beds. In February and March, warm days will bring catfish shallow, but a cold front can push them deep again.

Crappie Fishing

No other lake in South Carolina produces bigger crappies than the Santee Cooper Lakes. There may be a handful of better options for numbers, but if you’re interested in slabs that top 2 or 3 pounds, this is the place. 

Both black and white crappies reside in lakes Marion and Moultrie, and both are abundant. Spring is prime time to catch them, but excellent fishing is available earlier, in winter.

In January, one of the key areas to fish for crappies is the standing timber at the lower end of Lake Marion. Crappies love to hang out around this vertical structure, and it’s often possible to quietly move from tree to tree and catch a crappie or two near each one.

It’s not fast and furious action, but some very big crappies are caught this time of year. Drop jigs alongside trees that top out just under the surface, and adjust your depth until you start getting bites.

Wintertime crappies often aren’t as aggressive as they are at other times. It’s usually best not to jiggle your jig too much; keep it still and steady.

Starting in February, crappies in both lakes start to head shallow. Males go first, usually when the water hits 50 degrees. Larger females follow when temperatures pass 55.

It doesn’t happen all at once, and crappies often show up in spots that are just a degree or two warmer than the surrounding area. Shallow, dark-bottomed ponds and sloughs off the main lakes are quicker to warm and attract crappies early.

The shallow bite increases throughout the month of March and usually peaks in early April before tapering off. These lakes have so much shallow cover that crappies can and will be caught virtually anywhere. 

Brush piles and stumps between 8 and 12 feet of water are key features to look for in March. Both lakes offer an abundance of these features in coves, creek mouths and shallow flats.

Crappies usually bite quickly this time of year, so if you don’t catch anything within 15 minutes of arriving at a spot, move on. A good tactic is to start at the deep end of a cove and work your way shallow.

Small jigs and live minnows are the best baits.

Once crappies really get into the spawning zone, they’ll be in among the jungle of cypress trees and vegetation along the shorelines, usually less than 5 feet and sometimes as little as 18 inches. Good areas include Angel’s Cove and Russellville Flats on Lake Moultrie and the Cow Pasture and Black Bottom area of Lake Marion.

The period during which crappies can be caught in shallow water is glorious but brief. Any time crappies aren’t spawning—that is to say, from the beginning of May through around February—the fishing is best in deeper water.

In the summertime, crappies head to brush. Local anglers have sunk innumerable brush piles in lakes Marion and Moultrie, and the SCDNR maintains several in each lake. The best ones are around 25 feet deep, with their tops about 8 feet off the bottom. 

Fall is perhaps the most underrated season to catch crappies on the Santee Cooper Lakes. Rather than being spread out in multiple spawn stages as they are in spring, crappies pretty much all do the same thing at the same time in fall. 

That means if you can find a good area of woody cover between 18 and 28 feet down, you’ll probably find crappies. The upper end of Lake Moultrie is especially good this time of year, with fish suspending just above brush piles and stumps.

Other Fish Species

While the game fish listed above are the most sought-after species in the Santee Cooper Lakes, there are quite a few other types of fish found here.

Some, like bowfin and chain pickerel, are—unfairly, perhaps—disregarded as “trash fish” by many local anglers. Others, like bluegill and redear sunfish, are welcome catches prized as table fare. 

Bluegill & Sunfish

Sunfish go by many names, but there’s no disputing that they grow big and abundant in the Santee Cooper Lakes. The term “bream” often refers to these fish collectively, but in the local parlance, bream means bluegill, while redear sunfish are called shellcrackers.

You can catch a lot of both species here, but shellcrackers get the biggest, and Santee Cooper is famous for producing them in the 2-pound class. A state record (and former world record) shellcracker weighing over 5 pounds was caught in the diversion canal in 1998.

The best time for big shellcracker and bream is April through July. These panfish spawn later than crappie or bass. They create vast colonies of dish-shaped nests across the bottom of shallow flats. 

Shallow areas around the entire perimeter of the lakes provide ideal habitat, but many of the best nesting grounds are at the upper ends of both Lake Marion and Lake Moultrie.

When sunfish are spawning, 4 or 5 feet is usually the right depth. Spawning activity peaks around the full moon each month. After and in between spawning waves, the biggest shellcrackers will be caught a little deeper, often around 10 feet.

Live red worms are the ideal bait.

Catch More Bluegill and Sunfish

If you want to land more bream and shellcracker, check out our complete guide to fishing for bluegill and other types of sunfish.

White Perch

Members of the temperate bass or “true bass” family, white perch are closely related to striped bass and white bass. They have largely supplanted the latter species in Santee Cooper, becoming increasingly abundant while white bass have become scarce. 

As a result, white perch are seen as a nuisance by many. While these silvery fish typically measure about 6 inches and only rarely weigh more than a pound, they can be a lot of fun to catch. They provide ample fodder for kids to catch on family fishing trips. 

They also make excellent bait for larger predators. Live perch are a popular offering for stripers, and in the form of cut bait, they tempt plenty of big catfish. 

White perch roam Marion and Moultrie in vast schools, and they readily bite tiny jigs and spoons around humps, points and drop-offs.

Sabiki rigs with multiple hooks often catch several white perch on a single cast.

Planning Your Trip

A wide range of amenities that cater to anglers are available around the Santee Cooper Lakes, including numerous shopping and dining options, as well as accommodations ranging from campgrounds and RV parks to resorts and hotels.

Most amenities are centered around a handful of towns and villages overlooking the lakes, most notably Santee and Eutawville on Lake Marion, and Pinopolis and Moncks Corner on Lake Moultrie.

The lakes are busiest between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Lake Marion gets less recreational boat traffic due to its abundance of prop-demolishing snags and hazards, but it also gets the most fishing pressure of the two.

Getting to the Santee Cooper Lakes

The Santee Cooper Lakes are within two hours’ drive of practically anywhere in eastern South Carolina. Charleston, the closest major city, is about an hour from Lake Moultrie and 90 minutes from Lake Marion. 

The lakes are easy to reach from points further north and south via I-95, which crosses Lake Marion near its upper end. The interstate is one of only two major road crossings on the Santee Cooper Lakes, the other being SC-45 across the diversion canal.

Bank & Boat Access

Both Santee Cooper Lakes offer numerous places to get on the water. Having a boat is the best way to get the most out of fishing here, but there are also some great bank fishing options.

Some of the top public bank and boat access sites for each lake are listed below, ordered roughly from the upper end to the lower end of each lake. This Official Map and Guide is also a handy tool. 

Also worth noting is that, in addition to these public sites, there are also numerous privately owned marinas, resorts, and fish camps on the Santee Cooper Lakes. Black’s Camp, located near the diversion canal at the upper end of Lake Moultrie, is one of the oldest and most well-regarded. 

Lake Marion

• Sparkleberry Landing – The uppermost launch on Lake Marion’s north shore, Sparkleberry Landing features a two-lane public ramp. Public use is free, and the gravel parking lot accommodates 45 vehicles and trailers. There is little to no bank fishing here.
• Rimini Landing – This popular spot on Packs Landing Road, near the upper end of Lake Marion on the north side of the lake, has a four-lane ramp, courtesy dock and fishing pier, plus parking for 120 vehicles and trailers.
• Low Falls Landing – Located roughly opposite Rimini Landing on the south side of upper Lake Marion, Low Falls Landing offers four launch ramps with courtesy docks. Parking is available for up to 70 vehicles/trailers. Use is free, and bank access is limited.
• Calhoun / Stumphole Landing – The neighboring Calhoun Subdivision Boat Ramp and Stumphole Landing provide free launching and parking for up to 50 vehicles and trailers in the Elloree area, with two launching lanes, courtesy docks, and a bank fishing area with picnic tables.
• Hickory Top Landing – Almost directly across the lake from Stumphole Landing on the north side, Hickory Top Landing is a fairly remote and undeveloped launch site within Hickory Top Wildlife Management Area.
• Santee State Park – Offering some of the best facilities on Lake Marion, Santee State Park is on the south shore just above I-95. The park includes two boat launch sites, a campground, a fishing pier and bank access.
• Taw Caw Creek – Taw Caw Creek is a major creek that feeds the north shore of Lake Marion, and there are several public access facilities here. Taw Caw Park has a free public ramp and fishing access, and there’s an additional launch and fishing pier at the Taw Caw Campground & Marina. The creek also has excellent bank and boat access at the John C. Land Boat Landing.
• Eutawville – Three free public landings offer access in the Eutawville area on the south side of Lake Marion. Eutaw Springs Landing has a single-lane launch with parking for 15 vehicles/trailers, and Cathead Landing has two ramps and parking for 30 vehicles/trailers. Nearby Indian Bluff Recreational Park also has a boat ramp, fishing pier, and lakeside picnic area.
• Wyboo Swamp – Several major creeks feed the north shore of Lake Marion in the Wyboo Swamp area. Three public landings provide access here: the Rowland Subdivision Boat Ramp, White Oak III Landing, and Alex Harvin III Landing. Each offers excellent launch facilities but little bank fishing.
• Spiers Landing – The Spiers Landing Park on the south side of Lake Marion is convenient to some of the best fishing areas on the lower end of the lake. There is a two-lane ramp with courtesy docks, a fishing pier, and parking for 18 vehicles/trailers.
• Wilson’s Landing – Located on the Santee River below Lake Marion’s dam, Wilson’s Landing offers a two-lane ramp and a small parking area with limited bank access.

Lake Moultrie

• Fred L. Day Boat Ramp – Convenient to the Duck Pond area at the west end of Lake Moultrie, the Fred L. Day Boat Ramp is a single-lane launch with parking for about 50 vehicles/trailers. There is also an excellent fishing pier at this site.
• Amos Lee Gourdine Boat Ramp – At the north end of Lake Moultrie, the Amos Lee Gourdine Roat Ramp is located at the mouth of the rediversion canal that connects the lake to the Santee River (not to be confused with the diversion canal between the two lakes). This site has a two-lane ramp, courtesy docks, ample bank access, and parking for 43 vehicles/trailers.
• Hatchery Landing – A two-lane ramp and a dock that also functions as a fishing pier are at Hatchery Landing on the southwest side of Lake Moultrie. This spot is part of the Hatchery Wildlife Management Area.
• Richardson’s / Augustus M. Flood Moat Ramps – Two neighboring ramps provide access on the north side of Lake Moultrie. Richardson’s Ramp is a two-lane facility with a modest parking area and limited bank access. The nearby Augustus M. Flood Boat Ramp is a single-lane ramp with better bank fishing around it.
• Moncks Corner area – At the southeast corner of Lake Moultrie near the dam, two separate landings provide boat access. The Thornley Forest II Boat Ramp has two launch ramps with a courtesy dock, limited bank access, and ample parking. The nearby E Jarvis Morris Boat Ramp has a single-lane ramp and parking for 25 vehicles/trailers.