Story by Hunter Baughman | Photos by Tanner & Travis Lyons
Hello everyone! Glad to return to normal life after a very hectic two weeks on the road. I apologize for not writing anything last week. The Santee Cooper event was pushed back a day due to weather which shortened my already brief Pickwick Lake practice. Plus, I drove all night in between the events. Long story short: sometimes there is simply not enough time in the day.
Now let’s talk fishing.
Records were broken at Santee! The weights that were brought in throughout the week were crazy! Huge congrats to Jason Christie for dropping two mega bags in three days and getting the win.
Santee Cooper is possibly the most finicky lake I’ve ever fished. The place is huge, but the bass population is not. It’s the only lake I’ve ever fished that someone could feel dialed and still never get a bite in eight hours. In fact, if not for that, it would be my favorite lake in the country. I love the way it fishes. Heavy equipment and big fish in gnarly cover pretty much sums it up.
Practice was decent. I was getting seven to nine bites a day. They were all tree-related in staging areas. I was mostly flipping a Brazalo 501 jig, but I got a few bites on bladed jigs, too. The bigger bites seemed to be on the bladed jig, but the flipping bite was more consistent. Size wasn’t outrageous. I averaged mid to upper teens every day—mostly buck bass. There was a warming trend, and I was hopeful the bucks would be replaced with big females pulling up in those staging areas.
When Day 1 began, I made a short run to an area I had a lot of confidence in. I began flipping trees and almost immediately caught a 6 pounder. Thirty minutes go by, and I catch a 5 1/2. The females had moved up and the day was going well. In the next couple of hours, I added a 4 and a 2 1/2. I had a lot of confidence I could cross the lake and fish new water looking specifically for trees on points leading into spawning pockets.
In practice the bites across the lake seemed bigger on average. With this knowledge I felt like I could go catch a couple of big ones and really up my weight. Four hours went by without a bite!
This was very concerning because most of my tournament was going to revolve around that area. I was an early boat and my check in time was quickly approaching. I jumped back across the lake to where I started the day. I ended up flipping up a 3 1/2 pounder off the same the tree the 5 1/2 came off that morning. That was a limit, and I was out of time. I weighed in 21-09 to put me in 23rd place. It was mind boggling how well those guys caught them.
Day 2 I was cautiously optimistic. I had two hours longer than Day 1 to fish but getting just five keeper bites on Day 1 was concerning. I started in the same area and the wind was crashing in on my trees. I knew that wouldn’t work so I went to Plan B—running a couple of areas where I had previous experience. That produced one bite on a patch of grass in front of a tree. It was 3-4 pounds and didn’t make it in the boat.
Eventually I decided it was disaster control time and made a pretty good run up lake to the swamp. I had an area I thought I could catch an easy limit, but they would only weigh in the mid-teens. To my surprise I never had a bite there. Eventually the day dwindled away, and I checked in with no fish. Other than when I flew out for the birth of my daughter, I had never zeroed for on a competition day in the NPFL.
I was embarrassed and upset. It was a terrible feeling.
I spent all of Day 3 on new water. I mainly fished grass. I was looking for a group of giants that would help me salvage the tournament. I ended up finding one depression with fish. I caught one over 4 pounds, a couple of short fish and nine pickerel. Zero bites the rest of the day.
I finished the tournament in the 90s and am extremely disappointed.
They say hindsight is 20/20. I disagree. Looking back, I still don’t know why the tree bite completely disappeared for me. I know others were catching them on trees, but I missed it…badly. I wish I had spent more time looking for grass fish. I thought the tree fish would hold up. They didn’t, and I learned a lesson.
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for keeping up with how my tournament went. I’ll save the Pickwick recap for next week. Spoiler alert: it’s more of the same!
Hunter Baughman – Angler Profile
