PSG-1 said:mrdrh99 said:Hey PSG I see you're in the MB area.... What waters are good for tin boats there? I'm not far away in NC
Well, technically, our back yards share the same river! The Lumber River in Lumberton, NC, merges with the Little PeeDee River near Nichols, SC. Then it runs for several more miles until the Little PeeDee merges with the Great PeeDee. A few miles below this you're at Yauhannah, SC. From there, Bull Creek runs east toward the Waccamaw River and the ICW. Once you're on the ICW, you're only 2 miles from my back yard. But that's a long way to travel by boat....probably 125 miles or so. Here's a video of it from Nichols, SC to Fair Bluff, NC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tzs1Nbiekk
As for water around here, starting with fresh water.....as I mentioned, there's the Great PeeDee and Little PeeDee Rivers. The GPD is stained orange from all the clay hills in the midlands, while the Little PeeDee is much like the Lumber River, it's slow-moving black water. The Great PeeDee is navigable all the way to the fall line at Cheraw, SC, with the exception of a set of rock ledges at SC Hwy 34 bridge in Darlington County, but those ledges are only exposed at river levels below 8 ft.
Then there's the Waccamaw River, which runs from Lake Waccamaw near Whiteville, NC, all the way to the ocean at Winyah Bay. The lower section from Conway, SC to Winyah Bay is mostly swamps, and it begins to widen out. The upper section from Conway to the NC line is really nice. At lower water levels, there are a lot of sandy beaches. However, if you go much farther upstream than NC Hwy 130, it starts to get really narrow.
The Black River is also very nice. It runs from Manning, SC all the way to Winyah Bay. The section from SC Hwy 41 all the way to the ocean is easily navigable at most water levels. Going upstream from SC 41, headed towards Kingstree, SC, you encounter a lot of sandbars, and it gets narrow in several places.
And last but certainly not least is the Santee River, the largest river system in SC, and the 2nd largest on the east coast. It's also the oldest system east of the Mississippi River, and it has the highest population of nesting alligators in the state. This river technically starts at the confluence of the Wateree and Congaree Rivers, near Eastover, SC. However, because there is a dam at Lake Marion, it's not possible to go from the ocean up to the the beginning of this river. In fact, just above US Hwy 52 on the Santee River, there is a rock ledge/lateral step that's exposed most of the time. Lake Marion also feeds into Lake Moultrie, and these 2 lakes are part of the Santee Cooper lakes that provide hydroelectric power. Lake Moultrie feeds into the Cooper River, and this flows to Charleston Harbor. On Lake Moultrie, there is a lock, so, going from Charleston, it WOULD be possible to go from the ocean to Columbia, SC, and there are people that have done it. Barge traffic used to flow along this route until the 1950's or so.
From the diversion canal at St Stephen to the ocean is the section of the Santee I'm most familiar with. At lower water levels, there is a lot of shoaling from the diversion canal to roughly the area of Wadmacon Island, below SC Hwy 41. Once you get below US Hwy 17, you're going into saltwater, and the terrain begins to change. You see less and less cypress trees, and more cord grass, then finally spartina grass as you get within a mile or so of the ocean. At the ocean lies Murphy Island and Cedar Island, where you can camp year-round with no permit required. It's very nice down there.
As for saltwater, right at the NC/SC border is Little River, the ICW, Calabash Creek, and Dunn Sound. You can go to the ocean through Little River Inlet, which has a set of jetties, good for all types of fishing. The sound is shallow, but navigable all the way up to the tide gage just before you get to the bridge that connects Waites Island with Little River Neck. Lots of flounder, spot tail bass and trout in there. Just be careful of the tides, and the submerged oyster beds. The ICW will carry you farther south, toward Myrtle Beach, or farther north, going toward Sunset Beach, Ocean Isle, Shallotte, and on towards Wilmington, NC. Lots of small inlets along the way, but no jetties, so, these inlets are subject to continual change, and require some skill and nerve to run through, since you're going through a surf zone.
Just below Little River is Cherry Grove Beach, where I grew up. It's a small salt marsh with an inlet, but I don't recommend running that inlet, either, unless you're used to operating in those types of conditions. You can also access Dunn Sound from Cherry Grove, or at least part of it. The area near the bridge connecting Waites Island to Little River Neck has filled in. When I lived there in the 80's, you could go through it at mid-tide. Now it's a major issue to even try getting through at high tide. This is what happens when people stop using a route....it shoals in.
The next major inlet south of Little River and Cherry Grove, is Murrells Inlet, where I hail from. It also has a set of jetties. But this inlet is simply a marsh, it is not an estuary connected by any rivers, so, there's nowhere else to go from here, except out into the ocean. Decent fishing here sometimes, but truthfully, most of the time, it's overcrowded, except in the dead of winter.
A little farther south is North Inlet and Winyah Bay. 5 rivers feed into Winyah Bay, comprised of the Little PeeDee, Great PeeDee, Sampit, Waccamaw, and Black Rivers. It's a huge body of water, and it can become treacherous if the wind or tide shifts. But because it's such a huge body of water, the places to fish are endless. You can cut across to North Inlet through Jones Creek, but you have to be on the lookout for shoaling. Also, near the ocean, on the side opposite of the lighthouse is a place that goes by several names, including, "Quarantine" "The Window" "Mother Norton Sound" "Beach Creek" and "South Inlet" Anyhow, it's known as the window, because there's only about a 6 hour window that it's accessible, from half-tide to half-tide. You go through there, and float across the remains of the south jetty of Winyah Bay, and then continue along a narrow ditch that finally opens up into a nice marsh, with its own inlet, and even a beach. Unfortunately, the beach is private property, part of the Yawkey Wildlife Preserve, so, you can't camp there. But the fishing back in those marshes can hold a wide variety of things, including giant spot tail bass.
This concludes our morning tour of the northeast South Carolina coast! Hope you enjoyed! 8)
If you want to see any of these areas on video, click on this link:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDphjQuc7jqxBBKZI91ixoW-YU4e4B9yc
That's awesome.... I usually put in at sunset and head down to Bonaparte creek and little river. I had been using an inflatable but have sold it and picked up a nice wide aluminum boat. I was getting tired of dodging oyster beds. I have frequented lake Waccamaw but haven't been on the river itself. I may pick up an out of state license because I've heard the fishing down past little river was really good and has less pressure than sunset/Holden and further north.
