9-27-2025 Fishing Report

Honestly September is one of my least favorite months to fish. The fish are waiting on the water to cool and there is low O2 in the deeper water which puts them under a lot of stress and can lead to them being difficult to feed. But if we get some cooler weather it can really set up for some good fishing. Many years the topwater schooling will begin to happen in September. There has been some schooling happening on Murray. I haven’t seen as much on Hartwell or Clarks Hill. We are still catching most of our fish deep at the thermocline. Mostly out over deeper water. Although I did find some nice groups of shallow fish in under 30 feet on Murray on recent trips. The shallow fish are mostly smaller than the ones we are getting out deep. But they are a great option to finish out a trip when we need a little more action or to close out a limit. The hybrids we have been catching at Hartwell have been jumbos. That lake is starting to fish better and better now that the GA/SC DNR has shifted to a much higher percentage of hybrids in their stocking numbers. The biggest tip I can give you for this time of year when the stripers are under you and tough to feed is to change your baits constantly. There isn’t a lot of O2 down there and baits get weak quickly. I rarely leave a bait down longer than 5 minutes.

I ran a crappie trip on Greenwood in the past week. My first of the fall. Plenty of fish on deep brush. We got a limit plus a lot of throw backs. Both minnows and jigs were working. But the minnows were dying as quick as I’ve ever seen. If you didn’t get bit right away, you needed to change your minnow within 2 minutes. Fish Stalker Slab tails were getting bit about every cast if you could cast across the brush pile where you could see it on livescope and present it properly. Some of my customers are great at it and others struggle and we break out the minnows.