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Home › Waters › South Carolina › Lake Hartwell
Reservoir · Upstate · South Carolina

Lake Hartwell Fishing Guides

A big, clear Savannah River basin lake on the Georgia line, a regular host of national bass tournaments and a strong blueback-herring striper fishery.

A dock and moored boat on a misty reservoir at sunrise
Gauge location. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Guides on the Lake Hartwell

Claimed profiles take booking requests. Unclaimed profiles are built from public records so the river is never empty; the guide can claim or remove one any time.

Order on this page: premium and outfitter plans first (labelled Premium placement), then claimed free profiles, then unclaimed — one published price, no bidding for position. How placement works

About the Lake Hartwell

Hartwell sits on the Savannah River basin where Georgia and South Carolina meet, a large Corps reservoir with clear water, long creek arms and a shoreline of red clay points and hardwood. It has hosted national-level bass tournaments repeatedly, which means it is one of the most thoroughly documented bass lakes in the country and also one of the most heavily fished.

Blueback herring drive the fishery, as they do on the other big lakes in this part of the world. Largemouth and spotted bass both key on them, which pulls the fish off the bank and out onto points, humps and open water far more than anglers used to shallow southern lakes expect. Topwater over deep water at first light is a real pattern here for months of the year, not a curiosity.

Striped and hybrid striped bass are stocked and provide a serious open-water fishery, best in the cooler months when the fish are shallow and roaming. In summer they retreat to the deep, cool water near the dam and are caught on downlines. Crappie fishing around brush and bridges is dependable and much less pressured than the bass fishing.

The gauge below reports lake elevation. Hartwell has swung a long way through drought years, and a low pool changes it substantially: brush and docks come out of the water, ramps close, and the fish concentrate on whatever hard structure remains. Checking that number before a trip built around specific brush piles will save a wasted morning.

Hartwell is also a lake where the two ends behave differently. The Tugaloo and Seneca arms at the top are narrower, warm sooner and colour faster after rain; the lower lake near the dam is deeper, clearer and slower to change. In an unsettled spring those two halves can be a fortnight apart in how they fish.

This water needs a real photo

The photo at the top of this page is not Lake Hartwell.

It is a regional stand-in, honestly captioned but generic — we will not put a name to a river we cannot prove. Send us a photograph you took here and it replaces the stand-in, with your credit on it.

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Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Pool right now

647.74ft
  • 24 hours0.00 ft → steady
  • For the dateLow for the date

Reading taken 1h ago at USGS 02187010, HARTWELL LAKE NEAR ANDERSON, SC. Elevation is the surface of the lake above the survey datum, not depth. Source.

Fished this water? Add a photo

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Never published. We use it only if we need to ask about the photo.

Posting to Lake Hartwell.

JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 12 MB. We resize it and strip the location data out of the file.

The name shown under the photo. Leave blank to stay anonymous.

Reader photo license v1.0 — the short version:

  • You grant Guided Floats, LLC a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish, resize and crop your photo on guidedfloats.com and in GuidedFloats’ own social posts and apps. You keep the copyright and can use the photo anywhere else.
  • You confirm that you took the photo yourself, that publishing it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, and that anyone recognisable in it (or a parent or guardian, if they are under 18) is happy for it to appear here.
  • Credit is printed beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, using the credit name you give us. Leave it blank and we use your name; write “Anonymous” for no name. Your email address is never published.
  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Lake level alert

Tell me when the pool at Lake Hartwell ft

Now: 647.74 ft pool elevation, read 6:00 am CST, Mon Nov 2, 2026 (USGS 02187010, HARTWELL LAKE NEAR ANDERSON, SC).

We never use this address for anything else and never share it. See the privacy policy.

Access

Corps of Engineers ramps: numerous free launches around both shores.
Sadlers Creek State Park: ramps and camping on the South Carolina side.
Tugaloo State Park, Georgia: ramps and cabins on the upper lake.
Big Water and Springfield: mid-lake Corps ramps with good parking.
Seneca and Tugaloo river arms: the two main upper arms, each with its own character.
Hartwell Dam area: the deepest and coolest water, and the summer striper fishing.
Note: tournament traffic is heavy on spring weekends.

Seasons

Winter: stripers shallow and roaming, bass deep on points and brush.
Spring: the spawn, and the biggest tournament fields of the year.
Summer: herring-chasing bass over open water at dawn, stripers deep on downlines.
Fall: schooling fish on main-lake points and the best topwater of the year.

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Questions

What species can you catch on the Lake Hartwell?

Anglers target Black Crappie, Bluegill, Channel Catfish, Largemouth Bass, Spotted Bass, Striped Bass on the Lake Hartwell in South Carolina.

Are there fishing guides on the Lake Hartwell?

GuidedFloats lists 1 guide and outfitters on the Lake Hartwell. Claimed profiles accept booking requests; unclaimed profiles are built from public records and link to the business.

Where can you access the Lake Hartwell?

Corps of Engineers ramps: numerous free launches around both shores. Sadlers Creek State Park: ramps and camping on the South Carolina side. Tugaloo State Park, Georgia: ramps and cabins on the upper lake. Big Water and Springfield: mid-lake Corps ramps with good parking. Seneca and Tugaloo river arms: the two main upper arms, each with its own character. Hartwell Dam area: the deepest and coolest water, and the summer striper fishing. Note: tournament traffic is heavy on spring weekends.

When is the best time to fish the Lake Hartwell?

Winter: stripers shallow and roaming, bass deep on points and brush. Spring: the spawn, and the biggest tournament fields of the year. Summer: herring-chasing bass over open water at dawn, stripers deep on downlines. Fall: schooling fish on main-lake points and the best topwater of the year.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Lake Hartwell?

Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the South Carolina agency site: https://www.dnr.sc.gov/regs/fishing.html