10-07-2001, 12:39 PM
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2001:LAKE MURRAY,S.C.<br><br>Sunday morning, me and my girfriend, Eve a Carolina Lady Angler drove to Columbia,S.C. to go striper fishing with Matt Fletcher, V.P. of Sales for Shakespeare Fishing. He had been asking me to come up since last summer and we finally had a chance to go. The forcast for the weather wasn't the best and was blowing 10-15 knots from the southwest. We put the boat in at Lake Murray Marina. Matt has a nice 17' Champion bass boat with a 125 Mercury. So, it didn't take long to get to the other side of the lake. This is one of the nicest lakes we have ever seen in S.C. The houses bordering on the lake look like castles. One even has a totem pole and a pool. Anyway, back to the fishing story....<br><br>They started throwing silver and blue rattle traps while I started with my flyrod which was useless with floating line since the fish were holding in about 18' of water. We were fishing the drop offs at the edge of the grass beds. Needless to say, I didn't catch anything on my flyrod. I switched to a bait caster, which for me is pretty scary. Imagine that, the salty dog with a bait caster in a lake, fishing in a bass boat, trying to catch stripers. I made a few dozen casts and then they started to laugh. I knew it would happen, BACK LASH! That's when I put down the bait caster and picked up the old reliable spinning reel. Matt let Eve use one of the new Pflueger bait casting reels which she loved. Since Matt has all the new toys, it sure was nice fishing with him. I tried it and I could even throw it without back lash. Matt caught the first three which were too small (minimum size=21"). Then I got lucky and caught one which was 23". Eve had not had striper cooked right before so, she wanted to keep this one. Matt continued to put us on the fish at most of the areas on the lake that we went to. A total of three stripers were kept in all, and four more were released. Most of the stripers (even one brim) were caught on the silver and blue rattle traps and one blue and silver stick bait. None of these fish surfaced while we were fishing for them. Most of the areas we fished, were about 25' deep. The fish were coming up hitting the rattle trap from a depth of about 18' which is where we were marking them on the fish finder. <br>If you have never fished Lake Murray, you need to go. It is a beautiful lake and the fishing is good too. GO FISH!<br><br>Captain Rick Hiott<br>reelfishhead@bigfoot.com<br><br>Captain Rick Hiott's Inshore Charters<br>Charleston, SC<br>http://www.reelfishhead.com