Top 10 baits from late summer at Santee Cooper - Toyota Series by Phoenix Boats Southern Division
by Major League Fishing 25 Sep 18:08 UTC
An interesting variety of baits and techniques worked at Santee Cooper © Rob Matsuura / Major League Fishing
The Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats Southern Division event was not a catchfest, but there were still some highlights to be had in the Santee Cooper showdown.
For most of the field, catching bass consistently was a struggle, but big ones bit, as they usually do on lakes Marion and Moultrie. Notably, resurgent aquatic vegetation in the lakes was a key part of the event for many anglers. It could bode well for the future, and in the present, it meant a broad range of tactics were in play.
Here's what worked best on Santee Cooper.
1. Lawshe mixes deep and shallow
Earning the win in convincing fashion, Bennett Lawshe caught some shallow fish on a SPRO Bronzeye Pop and fished offshore cover with a Megabass Vision 110. He used 65-pound braid for his frog and 10-pound fluoro for his jerkbaits.
2. Heard leans on the grass bite
The best of the bunch fishing grass, Reid Heard only caught four bass on Day 1, but he roared back with 27 pounds on Day 2 and 15-8 on Day 3, which was one of the best bags on an extremely windy day.
Fishing around isolated grass clumps, Heard used 3/8- and 1/2-ounce Z-Man Evergreen ChatterBait JackHammers, throwing white in the early morning and Hite's hot craw after about 10:30 a.m. For both, he matched colors with a Yamamoto Zako. Additionally, Heard used a lipless bait in the mornings and also cast a junebug-colored Zoom Ol' Monster on a 3/8-ounce Texas rig to the clumps, especially when he could see fish in and around them and they wouldn't bite.
Heard used Ark rods and reels for everything.
3. Topwater plays big for Cook
A former winner on Santee, Bryan Cook was one of the most consistent anglers in the tournament, putting up bags in the teens every day.
"It was a new lake — the first day I saw the grass, I pulled out the old school stuff from the mid-90s when the lake had grass," Cook said. "The population of the bass hasn't caught up with the grass, but when it does, it's going to be phenomenal."
A Heddon Zara Spook that was formerly chrome did the vast majority of his damage, and Cook gussied it up with 2/0 Gamakatsu Round Bends and threw it on 15-pound Trilene Big Game. Cook also dabbled with a 10-inch Culprit Original Worm in red shad, dipping the tail in chartreuse and using braid and a 3/8-ounce sinker to swim or hop it through the hydrilla.
4. Robinson targets sparser grass
Turning in his second Toyota Series Top 10 of the summer, Mitchell Robinson was able to find fish in sparser grass and did his damage with a pair of time-honored techniques.
For his jerkbait, Robinson used a Megabass Vision 110+1 Jr. blank that was painted by Heath Green. He threw the jerkbait with 12-pound P-Line Tactical. His drop-shot consisted of a standard Roboworm Straight Tail Worm in oxblood with a 2/0 Roboworm Rebarb Hook and a 1/4-ounce Strike King Tour Grade weight, which he tied up with 10-pound P-Line EndurX No-Fade and a 12-pound leader. He used a 7-foot, 1-inch medium light Phenix K2 Torzite with a Shimano Exsence reel for his drop-shot setup.
"I found an area — it was two depressions about 10-foot deep, and they had scattered grass that was thin," Robinson said. "Most of the grass in the creek was too thick to 'Scope, but this had scattered grass and groups of two or three fish cruising through it. And I had two brush piles in the upper lake that I would hit on the way back to weigh-in."
5. Harris turns to Florida staples
With the amount of grass in the lake, a lot of Florida standards shone bright in this event. For Ben Harris, a worm and a swim jig got the call.
Fishing a flat, a drain and a channel swing near it all, Harris had to adapt throughout.
"My whole practice was tough; that was the only place I had gotten a few bites in," he said. "It was all or nothing there. It was just about figuring out where the fish would move to each day."
Harris used a Bridgemaster Chub Worm with a 1/4-ounce weight and also used a 3/8-ounce Medlock Swim Jig with a Bridgemaster Mat Dog trailer. He used Ark rods and reels for both setups.
6. Weather stymies Mrazek on final day
Fishing an offshore hard spot, Chad Mrazek did well on Day 1 and Day 2, but fell flat on Day 3, as he couldn't fish his area effectively in the wind.
"I had a spot in the middle of the lower lake, and it was so bad on the final day, so rough," Mrazek said. "The sweet spot was in like 24 feet, just a little rough spot, and they were slap loaded."
Sinking a Clutch OG down to his fish accounted for some big bites, and a 6-inch Deps Sakamata Shad on a 5.2-gram Gamakatsu Horizon Head LG did the rest of the damage. According to the Texas pro, using an 8-pound leader was key to getting smart, not very bitey bass to commit.
7. Cagle sticks to the grass
Fishing in, around and over the hydrilla, Colbie Cagle earned a Top 10 with some staple presentations.
Winding around a flat, mostly in the sparser areas, Cagle used a Gambler Burner Worm with a 1/4-ounce WOO! Never Chip weight, a 3/8-ounce War Eagle Spinnerbait in mouse and a 1/2-ounce Z-Man Evergreen ChatterBait JackHammer with a Gambler Komodo Trailer.
"They wanted it just above the grass, ticking the top," Cagle said. "My ChatterBait was getting hung up in the grass too much - I switched to braid on the final day so I could rip it out, and that made the difference. I caught almost all my fish on the ChatterBait the last day."
8. Warren struggles to follow up big Day 1
After smashing 25 pounds on Day 1, Casey Warren could never fish the same way the rest of the weekend.
"The first day, I caught everything in the lower lake," Warren said. "On Day 2, I spent about 20 minutes on Spot-Lock and almost sunk the boat. With that northeast wind I just couldn't fish them."
Warren's key baits included a 1/2-ounce Z-Man Evergreen ChatterBait JackHammer with a Yamamoto Zako, a 3/8-ounce Z-Man ChatterBait MiniMax with a Gambler FF Series Min-O, a Zoom UltraVibe Speed Worm and a Zoom Ol' Monster. He used Dobyns rods and Lew's reels across the board.
9. Neal goes up the rivers
In the pre-LiveScope era, rolling up rivers to grind out limits was a common late summer tactic, and Michael Neal successfully ran that game plan this week at Santee.
"I fished up the Santee, Congaree, and Wateree Rivers," Neal said. "Outside bends were key. More specifically, the front and back ends of the swings where the water was still deep, but where the current slowed up on each end produced the majority of the fish. The fish were around anything that made a current break, from things as small as moss growing on vines to big log jams."
His primary bait was a SPRO Fat John on 14-pound Sunline Sniper for covering water around pieces of wood. His secondary bait was a Big Bite Baits Kamikaze Craw pitched to trash mats and places where the crankbait didn't generate a bite. Neal used 80-pound Sunline FX2 in trash mats and log jams with a 1/2-oz weight and 20-pound Sunline Shooter around lighter cover with a 5/16-ounce weight.
10. Robinson jerks cover
Running isolated cover, Marshall Robinson fished a couple of jerkbaits and used 12-pound line and a 6-foot, 8-inch, medium-light Phenix K2 Torzite rod.
"I caught every fish on a jerkbait or a drop-shot, and I did most of the heavy lifting with the jerkbait," Robinson said. "Most of it was fish on cover — hard cover, wood, brush, sticks, anything. Timing was key. I rotated places instead of baits; I'd hit the same place over and over again. A bunch of my piles and whatever would have groups of fish, and they would all rush it every single cast. You had to make one of them mess up, and if you hit 'em enough times, eventually one of them would mess up."