Finsation: Day 6 - Lake Murray, SC

August 5, 2014

I woke up at a decent hour, had a breakfast of cereal, and packed up my tent and gear. I drove to River Runners Outfitters in Columbia to rent a kayak. They had a great fishing kayak called the Wilderness Systems Ride 135 that I got for two days for only $54. With a 13' 6" kayak strapped on my truck, I drove to a bait shop near the Lake Murray dam, where I would be fishing for big striper. I grabbed a few dozen herring and made my way to the boat ramp.

I got a good parking spot next the water where I got the kayak off of my truck and set it up with all of my gear before dragging over some large rocks and into the water. It was an easy mile of paddling to reach the 4 or 5 large pillars that I had been told of. Standing in about 180' of water, the monstrous cement pillars were hard to miss, and several boats were already fishing around them. I tied my kayak to one pillar and dropped my hook down to about 40', measuring the depth by letting the line down one arm-length at a time. Fishing with a half ounce egg weight and a circle hook 3' below it, I was ready to nail a big one.

I still hadn't caught a fish when one of the boats near me finally got one. The guy kindly told me about the depth he was fishing and I trusted him, as it agreed with what the guys at the store had told me. I then overheard him talking with another boat and they agreed that this was the hardest striper fishing they had experienced in a while. One of them said he wasn't used to having to wait this long to fill up his limit. Fantastic! That was just the bad news I had been hoping to hear. I began paddling around, fishing different spots around the pillars. Eventually, I grew wise and realized that I was the only person fishing the side of the pillars that I was on. I moved to the otherside.

After a while, several boats left and it was just two other boats and me. I tied up again to the end pillar, but this time on the more popular side. The current pulled me partially into the gap between two pillars, which I thought to be a good position. One of the remaining boats left. Soon, the last boat started hooking into some fish. I watched the man and his two sons let out line to determine the depth they were fishing at. They were fishing 20' - 40' by the looks of it. I fished for a while at 20' with no luck. I opened the bail on my spinning rod to let out a little more line. All of a sudden, the line became taught. Caught off guard, I clenched the line with one hand and fumbled to close the bail on the reel with the other. Fish on! Swift and powerful, the striped bass pulled line out of my reel and gave me a good fight before I netted him. I got some pictures of him and released him back into the water. No longer was I skunked on the trip! I estimated the fish to be about two feet long when I measured him against my rod ruler.

Over the next few hours, the other boat and I caught more fish. I ended up catching a total of 3 striper, the last being a female and the largest. She was only a couple inches longer than the others, but she was much heavier and fought like an ox. By the time I left, several other boats had arrived, one of which was catching a lot of fish with live herring a the pillar at the opposite end of the strip. I had no choice but to use dead herring. Nonetheless, I was very pleased with what my 6 hours of fishing had yielded. As I paddled away, I ran into another kayak fisherman, headed to the pillars. As it turned out, his uncle owned the company that I rented the kayak from. Small world. I told him where I had caught the fish and gave him all but a handful of my remaining herring.

Packing up my gear and kayak turned out to be quite a bit of work, especially loading the kayak onto my truck alone. Still, I managed to get it done and rinsed off in the lake before heading off to Columbia for dinner.

I parked at the kayak rental shop in Columbia, assuming I wouldn't get towed after hours since I had one of their kayaks on my truck. Since I was near the University of South Carolina, I looked on my phone for a cool hang out at which to grab dinner and a beer. I found a place called The Whig and figured it must be a college bar. As I walked to the bar, I meandered across the street to the USC campus and walked around its large administration looking building. It seemed like a cool place. I then began looking for The Whig. From its address, it should have been directly across the street from campus. Yet, I couldn't see it. Suddenly, I noticed a sign that said "The Whig." The sign was at the entrance to a stairwell leading to a basement. I liked where this was going. At the bottom of the stairwell, I found some students smoking in a tight passageway. I asked them where the bar was and they pointed to an unmarked, metal door. From the moment I entered, I knew I had found the right place. The dim-lit bar was full of college-age kids even though it was summer. Having everything from strange paintings to a mountain lion skull with added saber-tooth tiger fangs, The Whig was a very unique place. I ordered a couple 75 cent tacos and a locally brewed beer before sitting down at the bar.

Somehow, I struck up a conversation with a guy and girl sitting next to me, Patrick and Heather. We talked for more than a couple hours about sports, jobs, South Carolina vs Texas, fishing, and just about everything else. A big, bearded man, Patrick had been a pitcher in college until he graduated in 2006. Heather had elected to work instead of going to college, deciding she didn't care for the classroom environment. They were a lot of fun to talk to and I got some helpful advice from them about where to get lunch the next day and about a possible fishing destination at the Outer Banks in North Carolina.

Eventually, I had to go, although I was sad to leave Patrick and Heather. I greatly enjoyed our conversation. It took me an hour to get to reach my campground that night, and it was already midnight before I arrived. When I pulled up to Dreher Island State Park on Lake Murray, I didn't find any information on how to get a campground after the office was closed. So, I paid the $2 for a day pass and slept at the boat ramp parking lot in the bed of my truck, underneath the kayak and a mosquito net. It was a warm and short sleep.

Odometer - 1400 mi