Santee Cooper did NOT disappoint.
The Bassmaster Elite Series was once again in South Carolina this past weekend, and much like Lake Murray the weekend before, Santee Cooper brought bass fans a ton of action. Ontario native Chris Johnston was dominant on the two-lake fishery, relying solely on an urchin-style bait around docks to break the century mark (exceeding 100 pounds of bass over the four days). With a four-day total of 113 pounds, 12 ounces, he eclipsed second place finisher, Brandon Palaniuk, by nearly 20 pounds to earn his second blue trophy and a big ol’ $100,000 check.
Santee Cooper lakes, which is comprised of Lake Marion and Lake Moultrie, are widely considered a bucket-list fishing destination where you can always count on big fish. When major trails like the Bassmaster Elite Series or Major League Fishing roll into town, the anglers know it is going to take a massive bag of fish to win, and they also know their boats are going to take an absolute beating. Lake Marion is a shallow-water, jungle-fishing playground famous for its haunting, black-water swamps, endless stands of flooded cypress trees, Spanish moss, and dense vegetation. If you’re not sure where you’re going, it’s pretty easy to destroy your lower unit on a submerged stump. Lake Moultrie, on the other hand, is more of a massive, open-water bowl. While it still has plenty of shallow cover, grass flats, and cypress rims, tournament anglers often look offshore here.
A cypress tree flipping bite is always popular, as well as some topwater froggin’, but it was the urchin style baits that seemed to do the most damage this past week, so all that being said, let’s take a look at what the top 10 finishers were using to catch their bass on Santee Cooper Lakes.
10. Greg Hackney (71-2)
To secure his top 10 finish, Hackney relied on a versatile trio of baits to dissect the diverse cover of Santee Cooper. He targeted the thick vegetation with a Strike King frog, flipped the bases of cypress trees with a Strike King Hack Attack heavy jig, and utilized a Strike King Hack Attack swim jig, both with Strike King Rage Craws, to cover the water in between his primary targets.
Shop the Strike King Sexy Frog at Tackle Warehouse – $12.99
9. Bob Downey (77-5)
Downey built his weight by moving seamlessly between a bladed jig, a All Terrain Tackle swim jig, and a Rapala Crush City flipping setup. He used the ChatterBait to efficiently cover water, while leaning on his flipping rig with varying weights depending on whether he was pitching to isolated cypress trees or punching through thick, matted vegetation.
Shop the Rapala Crush City Cleanup Craw at Tackle Warehouse – $6.99
8. Tucker Smith (82-8)
Smith kept his strategy relatively simple, focusing on heavy vegetation with a bladed jig and picking apart docks and isolated targets with an unnamed urchin-profile bait. The combination allowed him to draw reaction strikes in the grass while still coaxing bites from highly pressured fish holding tight to hard cover. He paired his 3/8-ounce and 1/2-ounce Chatterbait Elite with a Yamamoto Zako trailer
Shop the Z-Man Chatterbait Elite Evo at Tackle Warehouse – $9.99
7. Kyle Welcher (83-9)
Welcher adapted to changing strike zones by deploying a topwater frog, a finesse stick bait, and a creature bait. He drew explosive strikes on the surface with a SPRO Bronzeye popping frog and relied on drop-shotting and heavy-cover flipping with Rapala Crush City soft plastics to finesse weary bass into biting when the topwater action slowed down.
Shop the Rapala Crush City Bronco Bug at Tackle Warehouse – $6.99
6. Justin Hamner (85-10)
Hamner leaned on a two-pronged approach, utilizing a large Clutch Swimbait Co. Baby Boss Glide Bait to draw fish out and a NetBait Bull Bream creature bait to dig them out of the thick stuff. To give his flipping rig an extra edge in the heavy cover, he applied a bluegill-scented attractant to his plastic.
Shop the NetBait Bull Bream with HexTek at Tackle Warehouse – $6.99
5. Pat Schlapper (90-3)
Schlapper locked a bladed jig and a creature bait in his hands to secure his top-five finish. He steadily worked a ChatterBait Jack Hammer over and through the lake’s vast vegetation, while opting for a heavy, 1-ounce flipping rig to punch his creature bait through the thickest cover he could find.
Shop the Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver at Tackle Warehouse – $5.99
4. Cory Johnston (92-3)
Johnston did nearly all of his damage leaning on a single, unreleased lure, the 6th Sense Abstract The unique, urchin-style profile gave the Santee Cooper bass a completely different look, proving highly effective at triggering strikes from pressured fish. Stay tuned for the release.
3. Drew Cook (92-9)
Playing to his absolute strengths, Cook targeted spawning largemouth by sight-fishing the beds. He kept three distinct setups on his deck to coax the bedding bass into biting: a heavy flipping package with the Nories Frint Flapper, a SPRO Wacky Snack, and a Coike urchin-style bait.
Shop the Nories Front Flapper at Tackle Warehouse – $8.99
2. Brandon Palaniuk (94-0)
Palaniuk tracked down post-spawn females holding on shallow cypress trees by identifying specific contour breaks paired with submerged vegetation. He utilized a heavy flipping setup to penetrate the cover, the illustrious (and impossible to find) Hideup Coike urchin bait. When he ran out of Coikes, he took some skirt material and made his own and caught his biggest fish of the week.
Shop the X Zone Lures Muscle Back Finesse Craw at Tackle Warehouse – $5.99
1. Chris Johnston (113-12)
To smash the century mark and take home the Elite Series blue trophy, Johnston kept his lure selection incredibly focused. He relied almost entirely on the Coike, modifying it with a small tungsten weight inserted directly into the bottom of the plastic to achieve the perfect sink rate for targeting shallow cover. And while myself and many other anglers started rigging them with Neko hooks (some still do), it looks like a treble hook has become the go-to presentation
With the top 3 anglers at Santee Cooper using them, it’s no winder you can’t find them anywhere.
Shop the Hideup Coike Fullcast at Tackle Warehouse – $20.49
