RngerMac, thank you for the tips! I got down there wednesday night with one day to prefish. I put in at a little ramp, no idea how I found it, it wasn't marked on any map and there were no signs I just drove out a road to look at the lake and found a sweet little area. put in Thursday morning and just explored the area. Got maybe 20 blow ups on the Stanley Ribbit frog and I was hooking up on some but they kept throwing the hook. I didn't have my single swimbait hooks with me, which is what I usually use, so I got my buddy to lend me a few and the next day was day 1 of the tournament.
Right off the bat, 3rd cast of the morning I land a 4lber, then a little later a 3 and another 3, and then a 5lber. Keep in mind I'm fishing a kayak tournament so we go by inches, but I was having a really nice morning all on the frog over some what I think was Hyacinth patches. so I had 4 of my 5 fish limit and pretty decent bag. I catch a 2lber to round out my limit. About 1:30pm I was still looking for a good kicker fish to really bump up my limit. I was fishing near a good friend of mine and we were working 3 weedbeds on rotation all day long. He said this one weedbed has given him 5 blowups on the frog in the last 30 minutes. So he works one end I'm working the front end, and we are chatting casually and then a huge dark shadow comes out of the grass behind my frog and just makes a little surface comotion and my frog disappears I wait a split second and set the hook and a massive 8 1/2 pounder comes out of the water all sorts of pi$$ed off!! I quickly land her and proceed to freak out a little bit. she went 23.75" and weighed 8.5# on an old Rapala spring scale, she looked spawned out. I'd say not long ago she was double digits. I was fortunate enough to have my GoPro running and got almost all of it on video, link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asEWyloftXU
So I had the lead on day 1 with 5 fish that measured 98". I estimate that they weighed probably around 25 pounds, give or take.
Day 2, the topwater bite was dead, I had a few blowups but they just would not take it. So I pitched a senko, texas rigged with a 1/8oz tungsten into the mats and was able to get an okay limit. I finished 2nd place out of 87 and just needed a 16.5" to cull up to the win, 1st place won $10,000. I was ohh so close, but how can you be upset with 2nd place and 8.5# to boot?! 2nd paid out well, so I'm not upset!
Overall Santee Cooper is a really cool place, its a little intimidating to be in a kayak around soo many gators during mating season. But you just have to give them their space. I'm very appreciative of you helping me out. I already can't wait to go back!
~Jay Wallen
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