Lake Marion is at 75.1 and Lake Moultrie is at 74.9.

Crappie: Good. Captain Steve English (843-729-4044) reports that crappie are in a post-spawn/ early summer phase. His boat is catching good numbers of fish – 35-45 per day – fishing minnows around brushpiles in 15-25 feet of water.

Bream: Good. Captain Steve English reports that anglers are still catching bluegills in shallow water. If you look around you can find some fish bedding, and the bluegills seem to come in and out regularly.

Largemouth bass: Fair. Captain Linwood Thornhill (843-509-8174) reports that the bass bite on the lakes has slowed, but there are definitely some good stringers still being caught. Some fish are being caught around slightly deeper cypress trees in 3-5 feet of water. There are also some fish being caught around grass, while some fish have moved out to depressions and “holes” in 7-10 feet of water. Soft plastics, swimbaits and frogs have been working.

Catfish: Slow to fair.  Captain Jim Glenn (843-825-4239) reports that there has not been a lot of change in the catfish bite on the Santee Cooper lakes. Jim has observed that when he has found fish drifting in 26-28 feet of water they were willing to bite, but locating fish has been the problem. This seems to evidence a population decline. For a period of time large numbers of 2-6 pound blue cats were being caught in one area, which seems to suggest that there were some good spawning classes in the last 2-4 years, and Jim urges anglers to release these immature fish so that they can continue to grow. Finally, there seems to be an increase in the numbers of channel catfish caught while drifting.

DHEC fish advisories: Largemouth bass and bowfin (mudfish) should only be eaten once per week.