The South's Best Shellcracker Holes
Shellcrackers at Santee Cooper
Editor’s
Note: I like to catch plenty of fish that fight hard,
test my tackle and my angling skills and
taste delicious when I eat them. These characteristics
describe the shellcracker (redear sunfish) with its
nicknames of stumpknocker and yellow bream. The South
homes some of the biggest shellcrackers, so named due
to the grinding teeth in their throats that crush snails,
shells and mollusks, in the nation.
Santee Cooper Lake in South Carolina probably has a
bluegill population just as good, if not better, as
any other southern state. It has good shellcracker-fishing
in the spring and the summer. But it’s during
the winter months that South Carolinians catch monster-sized
shellcrackers.
According to Scott Lamprecht, regional freshwater fisheries
coordinator for Region 4 of South Carolina’s Department
of Natural Resources, “Santee Cooper has some
invasive male species
and constrictive waters. We’ve had hydrolith and
weed problems, which produce plenty of algae and food
for shellcrackers.” In 1998, Santee Cooper had
a world’s record shellcracker that weighed 5 pounds,
7 ounces caught in the Diversion Canal.
“We catch 4-pound shellcrackers every fall, and
2- to 3-pound shellcrackers are fairly common,”
Lamprecht reports.
The Diversion Canal, which connects Lake Marion and
Lake Moultrie, seems to concentrate shellcrackers in
the fall months. During the fall and winter, shellcrackers
are caught in 15 to 20 feet of water. Anglers fish on
the end of the current, right along the bottom. The
fall run of shellcrackers usually starts the first week
of November and continues through mid-December. Then
shellcracker-fishing gets good again around Easter and
runs through the summer months.”
For more information, you can call Black’s Fish
Camp at (843) 753-2231.
To learn more about South Carolina’s Santee Cooper
Lake, go to http://www.santeebassin.com/areainfo.htm.
Tomorrow: Lake Tarpon and Lake
Guntersville Shellcrackers
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