Clearwater Cove, off State Road 97 north of Camden, is an excellent launching area in the lower end of the lake. Colonels Creek Recreation Area access is located off State Road 101 on the opposite side of the lake north of Lugoff.

Great Falls Lake is a 3,112-acre lake on the Catawba River that is almost at the back door of fishermen in Rock Hill and is reasonably accessible by Columbia anglers. Plus, it's very much overlooked as a quality lake for crappie fishing.

Much of this lake is a river environment, with a narrow, twisting channel that drops sharply in depth in many places. However, it is loaded with woody cover that can be easily reached with a long pole and live bait or small jig. Anglers here are able to cover a lot of different water depths close to the shoreline.

On the lower end of the lake, the water does widen out and the fishing is much more like that found in typical crappie lakes. However, this lake, because of its size and makeup, usually warms more slowly than Lake Wateree downstream or Lake Wylie upstream. This fact provides anglers with another good option: When the shallow-water action slows at Wateree and Wylie, the best shallow-water action is still yet to come here -- this can be a season-extending lake.

The lower portion of the lake is studded with stumps and woody cover. During April, most of anglers will troll small jigs or tightline minnows around the ledges and humps in the main river and larger creeks near the dam.

As a rule, even when fish are being caught in the shallows, many of the crappie fishermen will stick to fishing water 8 to 20 feet deep. There are times when wind drifting the stump-covered flats in 4 to 10 feet of water will also produce plenty of crappie during April.

There's an excellent public launching site off U.S. Highway 21 on the west side of the lake and Cane Creek access on the east side, off Bethel Boat Landing Road.

The population centers in the Upstate also have very good choices for crappie fishing. Anglers in the Greenville and Spartanburg areas are close to lakes Greenwood and Richard B. Russell, which are both productive crappie fisheries. Also, Spartanburg is not far from lakes Wylie and Great Falls.

Lake Greenwood is known as one of the better crappie lakes in the state, and the proximity to Spartanburg and Greenville is ideal. The entire lake provides excellent fishing, but during the spring, the upper half of the lake is red-hot.

There's a great diversity of woody cover in the lake. In addition to scads of docks with brush placed around them, there are downed trees, logs and stumpflats.

Also, the drops and ledges are loaded with stumps as well as large brushpiles placed by crappie anglers. During April, much of the fishing will be in water less than 8 feet deep. As the weather warms, look for the fish to begin to orient to the drops and ledges where woody cover is found. The later in the spring, the better the fishing tends to be farther downlake.