Predictably for late summer, Lake Murray striped bass are mainly grouped up on the lower end of the lake.  However, Lake World (803-957-6548) reports that some strange things are happening and early in the morning anglers have been catching striped bass on free-lined live herring.

Still, as is typical for this time of year down-lined live herring are catching the greatest numbers of fish, in the 80% range.  Fishing around open water humps in 40-70 feet of water has been the ticket, and anglers are also having luck in the same areas and depth range trolling their favorite big lure.  Fish will take trolled lures both day and night.

Overall, Lake Murray is at 357.10 with surface water temperatures 84.8 at the dam.  Besides striper there are several other good bites on Lake Murray.

White perch: Excellent.  Lake World reports that the white perch bite is on fire, with anglers catching fish anywhere from 7-40 feet of water.  Fish are schooled up near the bottom, and for the shallower areas worms are working better while in deeper water jigging spoons have been the best bet.

Catfish: Good.  Captain Chris Simpson (864-992-2352) reports that anglers on his boat continue to fill up coolers with channel catfish, and the key continues to be anchoring on points and humps and fan-casting out dip (stink) baits, cut herring, and shrimp in 5-25 feet of water.  The only significant change in the last few weeks is that the night bite has significantly outpaced the daytime bite, which is not unusual for late August.

Crappie: Fair to good.  Lake World reports that crappie are only really being caught around deep brush piles, but for anglers who locate the right deep brush piles the bite has been pretty good.

Bream: Fair.  Lake World reports that smaller bluegills are hanging around docks with the bigger fish making themselves scarce, but a pretty good shellcracker bite can be found in 8-15 feet of water.  Fish worms on the bottom.

Bass: Slow to fair.  It’s certainly the dog days of smaller for largemouth bass anglers, and a lot of sensible anglers are fishing at night when buzzbaits have been producing fairly well.  Carolina rigs have also been producing some fish in 15-25 feet of water during the daytime.