kayak

Kayak: Top Baits at Santee Cooper Lakes

The 2026 Newport Bassmaster Kayak Series at Santee Cooper Lakes was looked at as a premier event by the 214 anglers who participated. This fishery is well known for impressive numbers of bass and a chance at a giant on any given cast. Due to hazardous weather conditions, the event was held for one day. When fishing Santee Cooper, most anglers arrive with a variety of baits, including frogs, swim jigs, Texas-rigged plastics, flipping baits, and chatterbaits. After compiling the top baits from this event, it may not surprise you to see below what each of these anglers brought to the table based on recent trends in the types of baits used in top-tier tournaments.

Posted on
Written by
Marty Hughes
Photography by
Mark Cisneros
Ewing Minor of Tennessee put up an impressive 106.75 inches on his best five fish to take top honors in the Bassmaster Kayak Open Series event on Santee Cooper. Fishing around docks, Minor used the Coike Fullcast Shinikake Gill to land four of his five biggest bass. His setup included a 7’3” medium-heavy/fast rod with a 20 lb fluorocarbon leader. He had this bait rigged on a #1 quad hook with a nail weight.
A closer look at Minor’s Hideup Coike Fullcast.
Minor also threw a Zoom Magnum speed worm in green pumpkin and caught one big fish early with it in the morning on offshore grass. He used a 5/0 worm hook with a 3/16 oz weight. The rod was a 7’3” medium-heavy/extra fast with 17 lb fluorocarbon line.
Rus Snyders of Tennessee also broke the century mark with 105.5 inches.  First thing in the morning, he caught a 24-inch monster bass by punching a mat next to an isolated cypress tree. He was throwing a ¾ oz Reaction Innovations Spicy Beaver on an Irod Air 775 flipping and pitching rod with a Lew’s Tournament Pro reel spooled with 50 lb braid.
There was a lull in the middle of the day, but in the last couple of hours, Snyders threw the 17 mm Coike, and the bass were fervently eating it. He threw this bait on an Irod Gen 3 power finesse medium heavy rod, with a Lew’s KVD spinning reel spooled with 15 lb braid and a 15 lb leader.
Will Lambert of North Carolina finished well with a 104.75” total using a Hags “Prickly Pear.” He fished the middle of a channel outside a spawning pocket that baitfish had run up into during the night. He said, “The bass were so keyed up on the river of bait they were eating, I couldn’t get moving baits to work, so I threw out the urchin-style bait and didn’t look back.” After the shad bite died off, he fished the “Prickly Pear” over the hydrilla flats like a jerkbait.
Lambert’s setup included a JB Custom Rods 90/10 MED (medium/fast) Wicked Series casting rod with a Shimano SLX BFS reel with 15 lb Seaguar InvisX line.
Greg Polec of Pennsylvania landed an impressive 104.5 inches on his best five bass using a green pumpkin/blue stick bait rigged with a Gamakatsu G-Finesse EWG hook, using a few different placements of his hook and nail weight. His smaller fish came from fishing docks, but his biggest bass were caught in grass that was five to seven feet deep.  
Polec’s setup included a Megabass Orochi XX Perfect Pitch rod paired with a Lew’s Hyper Mag reel with 15 lb Seaguar Invizix line.
Polec used a green pumpkin/blue stick worm paired with a Gamakatsu G-Finesse EWG hook, using a few different placements of his hook and nail weight.
Jake Angulas of New Hampshire hit the century mark with 100 inches and a top finish, choosing to fish Lake Moultrie because it felt more like his home lake.  Angulas targeted smaller groups of larger fish in four to ten-foot depths in offshore grass with the Hideup Coike Fullcast bait. His setup for the Coike included a Douglas DXC 755F rod with a Shimano reel spooled with 17 lb line.
He also fished a bit deeper, targeting bass that were guarding fry in 10-16 depths with
 a Roboworm on a drop shot rig. The drop shot rig included a Douglas DXS 704F paired with a Shimano spinning reel and 10 lb braid with a 12 lb.
Ryan Matylewicz of Pennsylvania finished with 99.5 inches, throwing the Accent spinnerbait while mostly targeting fry guarding bass in hydrilla close to spawning flats. He then transitioned to the Coike and upgraded on some big females in brush piles. Matylewicz used a G-Loomis NRX+ 843c MBR rod for the spinnerbait and a G-Loomis GLX 844C MBR for the Coike. He mixed in a dropshot rig for a few filler bites as well.
A closer look at Matylewicz’s spinnerbait.
The Coike helped Matylewicz catch big female bass out of brush piles.
A look at Matylewicz’s G-Loomis rod specs.
Jared Stanley of North Carolina caught 98.75 inches for a solid Top 10 finish using two different urchin-style baits. His 19 mm Hags “Prickly Pear” and a 23 mm Full Cast Coike were primarily used on an Alpha Angler Clutch rod with 22 lb line. Stanley mentioned, “Like everyone else, I’m still experimenting with rigging options, so I tried multiple variations throughout practice and the tournament.” He fished stump flats and brush piles primarily in 8-12 feet of water. He said, “The fish in my area seemed to have transitioned from the docks that they were on early in the week and moved out to the flats.”
The Hags Prickly Pear produced some big bass for Stanley.
 The 23 mm Full Cast Coike used by Stanley in the Bassmaster Kayak tournament on Santee/Cooper.
Ross Pinkerton of Florida caught all of his fish on a Hags Prickly Pear in Texas Tuxedo color. He had a Top 10 finish with 98 inches. He used a 3/32 oz nail weight and skin hooked the bait on a Size 2 EWG treble hook. He put some blue Bait Pop on it and finished it off by cutting a small piece of plastic from the box and stuck it on the hook just past the barb to keep the fish from throwing it. He mentioned that he has not lost a fish since making that small adjustment.
He threw his baits on a Dobyns Champion XP 7’3” medium heavy rod paired with a Shimano Curado 150 spooled with 17 lb Seaguar Invisx line. Pinkerton said, “I caught all of my fish in four to eight feet of water around grass and docks.
Lance  Burris of Missouri took a 14 ½ hour drive from Lake of the Ozarks to break down the Santee Cooper lakes he had never seen before. He had three days of practice, of which he only caught a total of six bass during that time. 
On the day of the competition he decided to fish an area he hadn’t tried yet and it was 3.5 miles away from the ramp. This long trek would end up paying off for Burris as he found the water he was looking for with grass clumps and a dingy color of water. He said, “I had about 10 different bass boats around me during the day in this area but out of the 214 kayak anglers I didn’t see one all day.”
Burris caught all of his fish on three variations of vibrating jigs that were in the colors of fire craw, black and blue, and gold with white. He said, “I had to make a lot of casts and cover a lot of grass that was in the three to eight feet of water. He used a 6’11” medium heavy Kistler Feel N Reel rod with a 40 lb braid on an 8.1:1 Kistler Chromium reel. Burris mentioned that his Bonafide PWR129 with the new Garmin Force Current motor from Eco Fishing Shop played a big factor with positioning himself perfectly without ever having to take his hands away from his rod and reel. Burris finished with 96.5 inches to cash a check at this event.

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