5-4-2025 Fishing Report

For the stripers/hybrids we are in a transition time where Free Lines and Boards are still working great with water temps in the mid 70’s but the down rod bite should get going strong very soon. Fish are extremely spread out right now. In the predawn they are grouping up and running up onto shallow points to feed on herring and spawning shad. By the time the sun gets to the tree line this bite is about done and the fish begin pulling out deeper following the herring. We have had some amazing days at Murray following this exact pattern. We were in less than 10 feet catching them as fast as we could go early. Then later we were in 40 to 60 feet still pulling free lines and boards out off the ends of humps and catching quality fish. I tried down rods a couple of spots and the fish weren’t wanting to stack under the boat just yet. We caught a few smaller fish but the water will need to warm a little more and push the fish down in the water column before it truly goes wild.

At Clarks Hill we had a similar pattern going. Pulling up very shallow in the predawn and casting out baits on the bottom was very fast action. But it would end even faster than Murray as it started to get light. We would then pull out over the channel edges on the ends of shoals and pick up much nicer fish.

Hartwell has been fishing much tougher for me. I just haven’t been able to find that big biomass of hybrids since they have come down from the rivers. At daylight I have had some good bites pulling up on shoals but it’s way more spots and largemouth than hybrids. Which is fine but I really want to find that meatball of hybrids. There should already be some good down rod fishing in a lot of the creeks once the sun gets up but it has been hit or miss at best the last week or so. But if that water temp creeps closer to 78, the downrod bite should go wild. I’m going to keep checking and looking to get back on them good. This is a great example of why I love to fish multiple lakes. I have had great outings at Murray and Clarks Hill while Hartwell is in a lull.

The crappie fishing is full bore for me at Greenwood. 2 man limits using Livescope/Active Target over deep brush have been pretty common. I continue to sink more and more brush to make sure we always have options. I am starting to sink brush at Hartwell as well. My goal is to be able to pivot to crappie if the hybrids are slow or if we get an extremely quick limit of hybrids.