Next Santee Cooper Fall Qualifier is Nov 9 at John C Land!

BassKings Solo Series is coming to Santee Cooper in 2025! Win BIG!

Tap on the link to view schedule and info!

Bennett Lawshe brought in 5 bass weighing 16.91 lbs good enough for the win at Santee Cooper!

Billy Willis & Glenn Porter 2nd with 14.38 lbs!

Gunner & Don Pendarvis 3rd with 12.68 lbs!

James Gibbons with the BF at 6.15 lbs!

Team Coign battles through wind with swimjigs on Lake Brownwood to catch 28 bass weighing 51-7 and earn Patriot Cup title

EARLY, Texas (Oct. 29, 2024) – It was a blustery day on the water for the four teams competing on Lake Brownwood, Tuesday, in the Championship Round of the Folds of Honor Patriot Cup presented by recteq. The Team Coign duo of Jeff Sprague of Wills Point, Texas, and Bryan Thrift of Shelby, North Carolina, battled through the tough conditions to win the event, catching 28 bass weighing 51 pounds, 7 ounces. For their victory, Sprague and Thrift earned $40,000 and the Patriot Cup championship.

The event, hosted by Visit Early, was the third event of the season for the General Tire Team Series presented by Bass Pro Shops.

It was a close match for most of the afternoon between Team Coign and Team Builders FirstSource, represented by pros Ott DeFoe and Alton Jones Jr. Late in the third period Team Builders FirstSource had cut the deficit down to just 4 pounds, 11 ounces, then Sprague and Thrift went on a mini flurry, catching three scorable bass in the final 20 minutes to pull away and secure the victory.

Link to HD Video Clip of Patriot Cup Championship Round HighlightsLink to Photo Gallery of Patriot Cup Championship Round Highlights

“It was a good day, man,” Thrift said in his postgame interview. “We made good decisions all the way throughout the day. When we were here on Sunday for the Knockout Round, we got into a little bit of a midday lull. But today we got into the back of some pockets and fought through that midday lull.

“We caught some key fish in those pockets on a ChatterBait and a Texas rig,” Thrift continued. “And in the back of our minds, we knew that we could come back to this spot that we ended the day on and catch two or three to close this thing out if we needed to. We did, and it worked out, perfectly.”

Thrift caught eight keepers on the day – four on a swimjig and four on a swimming worm. Sprague caught 20 keepers – 11 on a swimjig, two on a vibrating jig and two on a Texas-rigged creature bait.

“The bait that carried us 99% of the way was just a hand-tied swimjig,” Sprague said. “We threw it with the brand-new Lake Fork Lure Co. Pro Craw, in bluegill and honey-craw color. The bait looks just like a bluegill, and that is what did all of the work for us this week.”

Thrift and Sprague came into the event with a bit of a chip on their shoulder. The duo teamed up earlier this season at the Heritage Cup in Wisconsin and had a disappointing tournament, not advancing out of the Elimination Round. This week in Texas, Sprague felt like their experience fishing together gave them an advantage.

“We learned so much from each other at the last event,” Sprague said before the event. “Even though we’d fished together a lot as friends, we’d never competed together on the same boat. I felt like we’d work together better, and fish faster and more efficiently at this one.”

Sprague’s prediction rang true, as the duo overcame equipment frustrations earlier in the week and worked well together, complementing each other’s styles and fishing fast, as both anglers are known to do.

“Today was a pretty stinking perfect, day,” Sprague went on to say. “I’m so excited that we got it done, together. If you look at the roster of guys that we fished against today… We competed against the best anglers on the planet this week. It is so difficult to win one of these things. I’m so happy that I got it done this week with my buddy Thrift, and I’m going to remember this one for a long time.”

The top four teams at the Folds of Honor Patriot Cup Presented by recteq finished:

1st: Team Coign, 28 bass, 51-7 Jeff Sprague, Wills Point, Texas, 20 bass, 37-7 Bryan Thrift, Shelby, N.C., eight bass, 14-02nd: Team Builders FirstSource, 21 bass, 43-6 Ott DeFoe, Blaine, Tenn., 10 bass, 20-5 Alton Jones Jr., Waco, Texas, 11 bass, 23-13rd: Team Lucas Oil, 14 bass, 26-0 Dustin Connell, Clanton, Ala., 10 bass, 19-12 Jacob Wheeler, Harrison, Ark., four bass, 6-44th: Team 7 Brew Coffee, seven bass, 10-6 Brent Ehrler, Redlands, Calif., six bass, 9-2 Justin Lucas, Guntersville, Ala., one bass, 1-4

Complete results from throughout the week can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.

Overall, there were 70 bass weighing 131 pounds, 3 ounces caught by the four teams competing in the Championship Round on Lake Brownwood. Connell caught the Berkley Big Bass of the day on a frog – a chunky largemouth weighing 4 pounds, 12 ounces.

The Folds of Honor Patriot Cup Presented by recteq was hosted by Visit Early and took place over six days in west-central Texas. The competition water for each day was top-secret and only revealed to the anglers when they arrived at the boat ramp each morning.

The Patriot Cup featured 12 two-man teams, divided into three groups as they entered the one-day Elimination Round matches. Each of the three Elimination Round matches featured four new teams, with the top two teams from each match of the Elimination Round advancing to the Knockout Round on Days 4 & 5. In the Knockout Rounds, three teams competed each day, with the top two teams from each Knockout Round match moving on to the Championship Round on Day 6. In Tuesday’s Day 6 Championship Round, the final four teams competed in a one-day shootout to determine which team was the winner of the 2024 Folds of Honor Patriot Cup Presented by recteq.

The 2024 General Tire Team Series is comprised of four events – Challenge Cup, Heritage Cup, Patriot Cup and Summit Cup – featuring two-man teams of MLF Bass Pro Tour pros competing from the same boat. Each event features a roster of 24 anglers, teamed up and working together to claim part of a season purse of more than $720,000. Teams were formed through a selection process, where 48 team captains – based on Fishing Clash Angler of the Year (AOY) standings throughout the 2024 Bass Pro Tour season – selected a teammate. Teams will compete throughout the fall of 2024.

The fourth and final General Tire Team Series event of the season – the Summit Cup – will take place Nov. 17-22. The location for the event will be announced to anglers thirty days prior to the start of the event.

Television coverage of the Folds of Honor Patriot Cup Presented by recteq will premiere on Outdoor Channel as six two-hour episodes in March 2025. New MLF General Tire Team Series episodes will premiere each Saturday morning on Outdoor Channel and posted to MOTV.

Proud sponsors of the MLF General Tire Team Series include: 7 Brew Coffee, Abu Garcia, B&W Trailer Hitches, Barbasol, Bass Boat Technologies, Bass Pro Shops, Berkley, BUBBA, Builders FirstSource, C-MAP, Coign, Epic Baits, Ferguson, Fishing Clash, General Tire, Knighten Industries, Kubota, Lowrance, Lucas Oil, Mercury, Mossy Oak, Nitro Boats, Onyx, Plano, Power-Pole, Ranger Boats, Rapala Baits, REDCON1, Smokey Mountain Herbal Snuff, Star brite, Toyota, USAA, WIX Filters and YETI.

For complete details and updated information on Major League Fishing and the General Tire Team Series Presented by Bass Pro Shops, visit MajorLeagueFishing.com. For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow MLF’s social media outlets at Facebook, X, Instagram and YouTube.

The Santee River coils like a copperhead through forests and swamps south of Georgetown, then splits in two — the North Santee and the South Santee — creating a vast delta full of wildlife and secrets.

Between the rivers, enslaved people once toiled in brutal heat and clouds of mosquitoes and biting flies. Their work made the Santee Delta's planters rich. But, over time, the stories of the enslaved were lost as tides and forests consumed evidence of their lives.

A new group hopes to change that. A partnership of historians, archaeologists and universities recently launched the "Santee Delta Project," a 5-year push to document the region's storied past and threatened future.

"Climate change is a ticking clock for the Santee River and its surroundings,” said Richard Porcher, a botanist and cultural historian who helped create the group.

Porcher, 85, has explored the Santee Delta for decades and has long believed its hidden stories need to be told. In 2019, The Post and Courier published “Our Secret Delta,” which detailed his discoveries and the delta’s increasing vulnerability to rising seas.

“After that, I got a lot of calls from people saying they didn’t know anything about the Santee Delta,” Porcher said.

That interest led to the Santee Delta Project. The group hopes to raise $800,000 for archaeological digs and surveys.

"We're talking about the whole cultural history of the delta," he said. "We'll dig into the ground to understand how enslaved people lived out there; we'll look at the rice culture; the gun clubs; the natural history; and how sea rise will affect it."

One goal is to gather enough data to support the delta's inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. Such a designation would both highlight the Santee Delta’s role in the nation’s history and make certain preservation efforts eligible for tax credits and grants.

Herb Frazier, a cultural historian and journalist, is one of the project’s team members. Like many, his understanding of the delta was formed mainly by the expanse of marshlands and forests you can see driving over U.S. Highway 17's bridges.

“It’s such a beautiful vista,” said Frazier, who recently co-authored “Sleeping with the Ancestors” with Joseph McGill Jr., a book about former slave dwellings. “But there’s a hidden history out there that needs to be told. A lost history.”

The delta's history and geology are braided together like the rivers that run through it. The Santee Delta drains an area the combined size of Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire. Its floodplain fills 550,000 acres — an area seven times larger than the city of Charleston.

As river and ocean meet, the lighter freshwater forms a layer that rides on the heavier saltwater below. Planters in the 1700s and 1800s harvested this layer of freshwater to irrigate their rice fields.

They did so by using enslaved Africans to clear thousands of acres of cypresses and building hundreds of miles of dike fields. They installed wooden gates called trunks at certain heights. At high tides, the trunks were raised, letting freshwater flow into the rice fields. At low tides, the trunks were lowered, allowing the fields to drain.

Several plantation homes still stand, including Hampton Plantation, now a state historic site, and Hopsewee Plantation, birthplace of Thomas Lynch Jr., a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

But finding evidence of the enslaved workers is more challenging and often requires an aircraft, drone and an explorer's stamina for physical discomfort.

From above you can still see remnants of that history etched in the marshlands — rectangular lines of earthworks once used to grow rice. With a boat and guides, you can also find intriguing ruins of structures that once housed enslaved people. On Murphy Island, trees and brush have begun to swallow what once was a large round brick structure that enslaved people used as shelter during hurricanes. Nearby are the ruins of chimneys from a village.

During hot months, insects can drive you crazy. Snakes and alligators abound. The delta's many creeks spread out like capillaries and make it challenging to move from one piece of high ground to another. Plough mud will suck off your boots. But these physical barriers may have helped preserve it.

Kendy Altizer, another Santee Delta Project member, is an archaeologist and assistant professor at the University of North Georgia. She recently did a pilot dig at what was believed to be a small slave settlement between the North and South Santee rivers.

“I put the first shovel in the ground, and in about 50 centimeters, we came out with a very large piece of colonoware (likely a bowl),” she said. “And it was a defining moment where we realized, OK, there are things here and it’s important to keep going.”

She and her students found evidence of brick piers that would have helped support houses. They found leather, peach pits, peanut shells and remains of shoes — “stuff that usually doesn’t survive in an archeological context, but it’s in pretty good shape.” They realized that the marsh had effectively sealed the materials in time.

In addition to the University of North Georgia, other members of the group include the American College of Building Arts; HeritageTrust; South Carolina Department of Natural Resources; Clemson University; the College of Charleston; the Village Museum in McClellanville; and The Post and Courier Foundation, a charitable arm of the newspaper that focuses on preservation, conservation, education, the arts and the environment.

After the Civil War, some of the Santee Delta's rice-growing plantations became hunting preserves for wealthy Northerners, including Tom Yawkee, who owned the Boston Red Sox. Yawkee eventually donated his 20,000 acres to DNR, which manages it as a wildlife preserve. Private landowners across the delta also have put many tracts under conservation easements. All of this has given the region a measure of protection from development similar to the more well-known ACE Basin near Beaufort.

But global warming is expected to raise sea levels by at least 3 feet by the end of the century. And nearly a third of it is less than 3 feet above sea level, a College of Charleston analysis found five years ago.

During his many expeditions into the high grass of the delta, Porcher found his mind spinning with questions about the enslaved people who lived in this beautiful and brutal landscape. He said he feels a sense of urgency to answer those questions, find the kind of archaeological evidence that brings those stories back to life. All before it's too late.

BERKELEY COUNTY, S.C. (WCBD) – Water from recent heavy rainfall in South Carolina’s Upstate and North Carolina is heading downstream into Lake Marion and area rivers.

Santee Cooper began drawing down the lake last week in anticipation of the near-historic water flows and said it would increase the volume of spilling to help manage levels.

Nearly 1,000,000 gallons per second is currently coming out of the Santee Cooper spillway in Pineville and will continue over the next few days.

“Right now, we’re currently looking at is we’re spilling water out of Lake Marion to make room for the water that’s going to be flowing down from North Carolina,” explained John Brush with Santee Cooper. “With the flooding up there, the water has to go somewhere. So, it’s going to come down into the Santee Cooper water system and into Lake Marion.”

The water level at Harry’s Fish Camp is low.

“It’s the oldest camp that’s been on the water. We’ve been established since 1943,” said Paula Edwards, a manager at Harry’s Fish Camp. “One of the guys that I work with has been here for 27 years and said this is the first time that you cannot unload on my boat ramps.”

That means no business there until the water rises, which will happen soon.

“We’re expecting water to be coming down this way at about 2,000,000 gallons per second and what we’re at right now is roughly just under 1,000,000 gallons per second, said Brush.

Lake levels will rise to normal levels over the next 24-48 hours; however, some Santee River area flooding will occur.

“We’re likely to see similar effects in Georgetown County like we did when we had massive spills in 2015 and 2020,” he added.

Santee Cooper said flooding will be more significant in areas closer to U.S. Highway 17 and that they are working with local and state authorities to manage any related issues.

Residents within the Santee River floodplain are encouraged to remain alert and use caution in traveling through the area.

Edwards said while this might impact their business, they are glad Santee Cooper is taking action, and this problem is nothing compared to the areas devastated by Helene.

“Just pray for them and they get the help they need, and all the people that’s missing because the water going down here, yeah, it impacts us, but nothing like what it has them,” she said.

Spilling will continue until further notice. It depends on how much water moves into the Lowcountry region.

BERKELEY COUNTY, S.C. (WCSC) - Parts of Lake Moultrie and Lake Marion are completely dry, leaving boats and debris stranded as parts of North and South Carolina are still surrounded by excess water without a place for that water to go.

Santee Cooper is responsible for the dams near Lake Marion and Lake Moultrie and said the water removal was done on purpose to plan for significant flooding later this week.

Santee Cooper began drawing down the lake late last week to make room for incoming water as the organization expects near-historic water flows from North Carolina to make its way into the lakes.

System operators expect inflows to Lake Marion to reach about 2 million gallons per second. As a result, Santee Cooper plans to increase the spill to a little less than 1 million gallons per second beginning Tuesday.

At that volume, there could be flooding in the Santee River floodplain as early as Thursday or Friday this week.

In Bonneau Beach, residents said the lake was lowered to levels they don’t normally lower it to, leaving dozens of boats that look like they are sitting on grass and are stuck in the mud.

“It’s so low and now the boats can’t come out,” Richard Caddell, who lives on Lake Moultrie, said. “You can still enjoy the water, but they drop it down so low you can’t get your boat out. So, what are you going to do?”

Residents say this is the first time the lake has looked this dry since a drought years ago, and the communication about this plan from Santee Cooper was limited.

“They are supposed to let me know when they’re dropping water, but they never say how much or how long,” Caddell said. “Hey, I should have gotten my boat out Friday, but that didn’t happen because I didn’t know.

With what can be expected later this week, Santee Cooper said this is a significant spill, and flooding should be expected in the same areas in Georgetown County as experienced in 2015 and 2020, when the utility also conducted major spills.

Flooding will be more significant in areas closer to U.S. Highway 17. The Santee Cooper team is working with local and state authorities to manage any related issues.

Despite the lack of communication, Caddell is glad the lakes can help remove some of the waters from the upstate and North Carolina.

“We could use a lot of water here to keep it from going there. You could probably put a couple of billion gallons of water out there and still have room for the water coming down from all the storm,” Caddell said.

Santee Cooper asked residents in the floodplain area are encouraged to remain alert and use caution in traveling through the area. The following statement was also included in the press release:

Property owners and others connected to the flood plain receive notifications any time Santee Cooper initiates or changes a spill through the Spillway.

Anyone interested in getting on the notification list can send an email with your request to OperationsPlanning@santeecooper.com or call 843-761-8000 ext. 5857.

Copyright 2024 WCSC. All rights reserved.

MONCKS CORNER, S.C. – Santee Cooper expects near-historic water flows coming from North Carolina and making their way downstream into Lake Marion. The utility began drawing down the lake last week to make room for incoming water and will increase the volume of spilling as those inflows are increasing.

Santee Cooper’s dams and dikes are secure, and this spill will help maintain their integrity through this period of extreme inflows. Santee Cooper System Operators expect inflows to Lake Marion to reach about 2 million gallons per second (about 280,000 cubic feet per second). As a result, Santee Cooper plans to increase the spill to a little less than 1 million gallons per second (130,000 cfs) beginning Tuesday, Oct. 1.

At that volume, there could be flooding in the Santee River floodplain as early as Thursday or Friday this week. This is a significant spill, and flooding should be expected in the same areas in Georgetown County as experienced in 2015 and 2020, when the utility also conducted major spills. Flooding will be more significant in areas closer to U.S. Highway 17. The Santee Cooper team is working with local and state authorities to manage any related issues.

Residents in the floodplain area are encouraged to remain alert and use caution in traveling through the area.

Property owners and others connected to the floodplain receive notifications any time Santee Cooper initiates or changes a spill through the Spillway. Anyone interested in getting on the notification list can send an email with your request to OperationsPlanning@santeecooper.com or call 843-761-8000 ext. 5857.

Spilling will continue until further notice, and developments will be noted on Santee Cooper’s Facebook page and Twitter feed. Information will also be updated each business day on the lake information line at 1-800-92LAKES.

Santee Cooper

Santee Cooper has served the people of South Carolina for 90 years. Santee Cooper is the state’s largest power provider and the ultimate source of electricity for 2 million people across the state. It also provides clean drinking water to more than 200,000 people. Through its affordable, reliable and environmentally responsible electricity and water services, and through innovative partnerships and initiatives that attract and retain industry and jobs, Santee Cooper helps power South Carolina. To learn more, visit www.santeecooper.com and follow #PoweringSC on social media.