Catfish Road Trip To Santee Cooper Reservoir

[Music] oh [Music] got some extra overalls some bloney and cheese some white bread cup of coffee and some toilet paper we're going someplace i've never been a place called santa cooper reservoir years ago in my younger day one of my first recollections of hearing about a really big catfish was in santa cooper reservoir man what a busy place i hate getting gas here and i'll bet that pump still got a plastic bag over it broke down it's about the only one easy for me to get my boat on now some dude's parked there trying to get gas pulling a boat can be a hassle i've rode around this thing right here 45 times before i ever got me a spot by the time i finally got my gas uh the fish had already quit biting there we go i'll ride around here 45 more times i guess hoping for a spot [Music] i'm just assuming if it's a six hour drive i'm gonna need a full tank of gas so we got gas now who is this standing outside the atm machine are they begging for money or what how much of a while is it going to be at least about 15 minutes or so 15 yeah because i'm going to south carolina i need some cash yeah go to a drive-through yeah could i pull this boat through there all right we starting out with all kind of problems this morning now the atm machine's broke down you don't leave town without no extra cash it's gonna be dark driver get out of this bank well this line ain't moving i guess i'll go inside i guess i'll just go inside round and round the bank we go when we stop no one knows when we get out of here no one knows either about tired of this now where do you park this boat at this little bitty bank since the atm don't work since you can't go through the drive-thru obviously because that one person in front of me is obviously setting up an address and going to live there i guess i'll just pull right out here and i'll block this car or anybody else from pulling in here there we go i'll block the whole town from getting money if i can't get money [Applause] one reason i hate going in the bank is because they make you wear a dag-blasted mask just to go in there now if i was working in a bank the last thing i would want to see is somebody walk through the door with a mask on but that's what they want you to do yes ma'am i talked to you just a little while ago about renting a motel room coming from tennessee yeah you still got that for tonight i mean tomorrow night uh well i was hoping for tonight since i'm on the way now oh it's for tomorrow night yeah i don't have anything tonight oh lord have mercy oh shoot yep okay let me try them and then i might be calling you back about tomorrow night i don't know here is the problem that i'm facing i tried to stay at black camp they're booked up so i call this lady over at hills uh whatever hills landing she said she had a room i thought it was for tonight there ain't no room for tonight it's just one for tomorrow night that means i'm going somewhere down here six hours from the house and uh i don't know where i'm gonna stay so this could be an interesting trip i'm gonna call this lady what whatever they whatever she called it the uh canal blah blah blah blah blah let me look them up and call them because i really don't want to have to keep this boat at a motel i'll wake up in the morning there won't be no batteries or tires left on it i don't understand this people on these on-ramps the on-ramp was designed so that you can build up to the speed of traffic as you come on the interstate so here this car is coming on the ramp they're ahead of me instead of hitting the gas and getting over he puts on the brakes and now here he comes like a raging maniac i shouldn't have had to let him on because he was so far ahead of me at one point all he had to do was get over i expected him to use some common sense that didn't happen [Music] hey yes ma'am uh you wouldn't possibly have a room for me to stay in tonight would you yeah just for tonight uh i i i mean i may stay two nights uh right now i do have a couple open oh okay uh where are you coming from uh east tennessee uh you're gonna be here before eight o'clock oh yeah yeah i should be there before five o'clock mind i'm gone to carolina can't you see the sunshine can't you just feel the moon shine man i'm way up in the sky here the problem with going down a hill like this is the fact that i'm going to have to come back up it on the way home all right people we just about here we in the town across south carolina uh i just stopped off in some parking lot there and peed in a bottle it took me way longer to get here than i was supposed to because of all the traffic malfunctions either way uh it says i'm 3.9 miles from my destination it's been a drive i hope the catfish bite is alive when i get here because this was a long way to go for the bite to be slow dang people i hope this gps taken me to the right spot i'm out here in the middle of dirt roads and everything else dang gates closed what stupid gps man this is where we're at canal lakes fish camp it was the only one that had an open room that might not be a good sign private drive private property under surveillance blah blah blah okay i've never been to a fish camp before i snuck in a nudist camp one time when i was a teenager down in florida it was nothing but old people there what nothing there you wanted to see there's a sign that says live hearing uh i don't know where the dang office is we're gonna pull right here there's another big catfish boat well all right people uh i think the game plan is to stay right here tonight there's a boat ramp right here i've got this little beat up trailer room in the back it ain't pretty by no means i've already seen two people that know who i am here and i've talked to them they got me a little dinner here from mack daddy's which is part of the fish camp here got me a philly chip philly steak and cheese some fries and uh i'm gonna eat this and we probably gonna launch the boat right here this evening i can tell you now this is one busy popular place right here there's a philly steak and cheese from mack daddy's and got the big old style steak fries all right people we don't have long before dark it took me quite a while to get the boat launched there was a huge amount of boats put it in the river uh this is a popular place now i've heard from i don't know how many people some of these are experienced cat guys i actually knew some people uh down here and uh nobody's catching much of nothing right now from everybody i've talked to whether it's drifting the canal upper lower lake it don't matter fishing shallow uh you know it just don't matter nobody's catching squat so either way i figure if they're not catching squat anywhere just for tonight i'm going to start off here in this uh diversion canal i'm just right up from the camp there water attempts in the 50s so i've got two baits thrown on drift sinkers right here in the shallow entrance and then i've got one bigger bait just over the drop-off ledge here i'm getting a little bite on that drop-off bait now i found out as i was buying my license for this place that uh my skip jack are illegal here so what we're using for this video uh is american shad because they look just like skip joke the mosquitoes are pretty dang bad right now i'm just trying to get the skunk out of the boat very swept current in this diversion canal right now getting another little twitch on the left well we know the small fish are biting there's a bite there's a bite official official [Music] that fish hit shallow ain't no whopper but everybody says they ain't catching nothing out here skunks out of the boat people sandy cooper reservoir all right people the bite definitely isn't on fire in this canal like they said i was told by some people at the ramp i come down here at one of the worst times of the year it being a transition period but either way i wanted to come out when i first got here try the ramp out get the skunk out of the boat we'd done that so i'm gonna i'm about a quarter mile up from the camp i'm probably going to pull out in the channel and drift back i got to go ahead and start unpacking the truck and getting stuff in the room because we got a full day out here tomorrow well here it is y'all it's got a hole cut in the screen because they don't have a plug-in for your boat so i guess they made you a hole in the screen so you could plug your boat in i got everything out of the boat except for my yeti cooler uh comes equipped with mildew smell not many windows couple saggy mattresses small bathroom whoo we styling we at the marriott the only thing i'm worried about is i left my yeti cooler in the boat but if they get that all they gonna get is a bunch of ice bologna cheese and uh american shad all right people guess the next morning i didn't sleep 10 minutes on this bed i promise you that yeti cooler still out there guess they didn't want no american shed all right people this where i'm staying i got me a breakfast sandwich over there at mack daddy's in a coffee i'm fixing to load this boat up i'm gonna get out there i'm gonna attempt to fish for some white perch because i need something besides these american shed and uh so i got me some small hooks and some red worms and i'm drop weight might be successful might not i ain't never caught no white perch all these catfishermen around here man they get out there at 5 00 a.m it's about 7 30 and the only reason i got up that early because i didn't sleep i ain't getting up at no 5am for nothing a little for now little for later y'all this is crazy out here it looks like the ocean out here i ain't never been on nothing this big good lord this is right where the canal flows into the main lake a lot of boats out bass tournament going on i'll tell you what you don't want to be far out on this lake in a little boat if a storm pulls up plus they got gators in here i feel like i'm out in the middle of the atlantic let's hope for a calm seas and to not get skunked today all right people we ain't catching jack squad out here in the middle of the ocean i've had a couple small bites that's it also i'm not getting the first white perch out here i don't know if these fish like american shed there may be nothing but gators and sharks this far out i'm going to cruise up shallower and we might double anchor in some still water where i think there's some bait fish around because as far as this area here there don't seem to be no fish in town so let's cruise on up that way and try plan b all right y'all i'm anchored back here in the shallow water by black's camp i'm double anchored in seven foot i still can't catch no dag blasted white perch either way i got a couple red worms in the water waiting on them three baits scattered out i'm fishing tennessee style only using american shed i caught one last night on american shed i've had a few bites i know they'll eat it it's uh 10 21 a.m we're still officially in what i call the morning bite we're not in the hour of suck yet when it hits the hour of suck i may go get some lunch i don't know so far the bite's been slow i'm down here at the mecca of catfishing and i ain't caught jack squat other than one fish last night we'll see if something will bite oh he's going to get that other anchor rope [Music] that's not a bad fish at all [Music] looks like the bite is shallow uh this isn't a bad fish in fort loudoun it's hard to get fish like this i mean that's not a bad fish at all that's a quality fish man sani cooper the mecca of catfishing well i'll tell you what people i know how to catch a catfish but i sure ain't figured out a way to catch one of these dag blasted white perch i drifted coming down the canal a fish for them out there i fished for them back here anywhere i'm at there ain't no white perch near so either way i got some bologna and cheese down in there with that american shad i'm getting hungry i'll tell you what i'm going to do people we're getting up into the heat of the day i'm going to ride around this back bay here and uh i'm going to see if i can't mark some bait fish it's gonna take a while for me to go through this there's a ton of cypress trees and stuff uh sticking up everywhere out here there's a lot of shallow spots i'm anchored in seven foot of water right here and this is actually a deep section i think i'm going to do some exploring i'd like to see if i could catch one of them dag blasted white perch [Music] all right people uh this is a diversion of the diversion canal the fish i caught this morning was in more of a backwaters uh out of the current and that water was 61 degrees this is 58. i've got some current in here it is four foot of water something i found while driving around on my boat here after i got me a bite to eat and that here is actually a piece of white perch which is pretty popular bait here so i'm gonna throw this just on one rod and then i got american shad and i'm gonna put another american shed way over here to the left i've already got a fish on video two fish on video i'm just here to relax i'm just gonna enjoy the scenery now and see what happens so far all i'm getting is some channel cat action on that middle rod white perch hasn't had a nibble i believe that old channel cat unhooked himself yeah old sandy cooper channel cat that was a big piece of bait when he started on it and he kept going until he found the hook you have any luck last night no i caught one fishing that hard last night catching nothing all i caught last night was a channel cat sir all i caught last night was a channel kit i caught it sitting right here but uh uh my biggest one went about 30 pounds and i caught it over there by black camp up in the shower water i caught one out here in this canal uh not poured out of blue about 12 pounds it's been pretty slow they're real real slow i said i watched your video last night have a go brother you too this trip here was pretty much just a catfish vacation i done more driving more time sitting in a restaurant more time laying around in the bed than i did actual fishing it was convenient everything was right on the water had a place to sleep had food to eat boat ramp was right there didn't have to drive nowhere once i got here the bite wasn't hot and everybody said the bite was kind of slow this weekend transition time there's an old channel cat but i've heard about this place since i was a kid someplace i always wanted to go see now i can say i've been to sanni cooper i'd say i'll come back here one day when i know the bite is better somewhere up in spring or in the fall i'm sure that time of year you could really have a ball the main thing is i drove six hours and didn't get skunked this is a video there was fish in the video that makes it a fishing video this is catfish day from sandy cooper reservoir signing out [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Catfish Dave

Views: 56,166

Rating: 4.9240098 out of 5

Keywords: Catfish, Blue Catfish, Fishing, Skipjack, American Shad, Santee Cooper Reservoir, White Perch, South Carolina, Canal Lakes Fish Camp, Hills Landing, Blacks Camp

Id: 8uRLX7TGSis

Length: 30min 32sec (1832 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 17 2021