Drive past Koon Landing on Shull Island Road on a Tuesday morning in late August and you might see two trucks with empty trailers, three if someone got an early start. Drive the same stretch two weeks into September and the gravel shoulder is full, trucks backed up onto the grass, tailgates down while guys in waders sort through coolers before the sun clears the tree line. Nothing about the ramp changed. The water did.
Most people who live around this end of Lake Murray assume the lake's busy season runs through summer, when the days are longest and the boat traffic on the open water is heaviest. That assumption is backwards for the fishing that actually drives the ramp lines. The striped bass that make this stretch of Lake Murray worth fishing do their most aggressive feeding after the water cools, not while it's hot, and the guides who work this lake for a living build their fall calendars around that fact rather than the tourist calendar most residents carry around in their heads.
The Fish Are on a Different Clock Than the Boaters
Striped bass on Lake Murray have two real feeding windows each year, and neither one lines up with the Fourth of July. Spring, roughly March through May, is the first. Fall, September through November, is the second, and multiple guides who fish this water year-round describe it as the more reliable of the two. As water temperatures drop into the 55 to 65 degree range, stripers push toward shallower structure and feed hard to build reserves before winter. That's a straightforward biological pattern, not a marketing pitch from a charter operator.
Summer tells a different story on the same lake. The water column stratifies as surface temperatures climb, and stripers retreat to deeper, cooler channels during the heat of the day. Guides who fish Lake Murray through July and August shift their trips to early morning or late evening and target deep structure with electronics, because midday fishing in warm water is slow. It works, but it's a workaround. Fall doesn't require one. The fish come to the shallows on their own schedule, which is exactly why the ramp at Koon Landing looks different once Labor Day passes. The people backing trailers down that ramp in September aren't summer holdouts. They're timing the season correctly.
Koon Landing Isn't Built for Anyone but Locals
Larry L. Koon Boat Landing, the one everyone in Gilbert just calls Koon Landing, sits on Shull Island Road on the Lexington County side of the lake. It has two concrete launch ramps, a courtesy dock, paved parking sized for trucks with trailers, a picnic area, and restrooms. That's the entire amenity list. There's no restaurant attached, no fuel dock, no gift shop selling lake-themed koozies. It exists to get a boat in the water and get a boat out, which is precisely why it functions as the working ramp for people who live here rather than a stop on anyone's lake tour. Shoreline fishing happens there too, for the days someone doesn't feel like hauling the boat at all.
That utilitarian design is worth noticing because it tells you who the ramp actually serves. Destination marinas further around the lake cater to weekend visitors and pontoon rentals. Koon Landing caters to someone who already knows exactly where they're headed once the boat clears the no-wake buoys, which in September and October is usually toward the same shallow flats and creek mouths where the herring have started schooling.
Siesta Cove Is Where the Season Actually Turns Over
A few miles from Koon Landing, Siesta Cove Marina & RV Park on John Long Road runs the other half of Gilbert's fall fishing routine. It's a full-service marina with its own launch ramp, a gas dock, and a Marina Mart that stocks live bait and tackle alongside the ice and beer. The ramp fee runs around five dollars, among the cheapest on the lake, which is part of why it functions as a staging point rather than a landmark people drive out of their way to see.
Guide services treat it that way too. Git-R-Bent Fishing Guide Service, which runs trips on both Lake Murray and Clarks Hill Lake, tells clients to meet them directly at Siesta Cove before a trip rather than at a more scenic or better-known dock elsewhere on the lake. That's a small detail, but it says something real about how this corner of Gilbert works. The marina isn't dressed up for visitors. It's set up for people who need bait, fuel, and a ramp before daylight, which is exactly the crowd that shows up heaviest from September through November.
The Guides Who Wait All Summer for This Stretch
Ask around and you'll hear the same names. Catch22 Striper Guide Service, run by Captain Terry Caulder, targets striped bass on Lake Murray year-round but treats the cooler months as the payoff stretch, the time when a client is more likely to land something close to the 20-plus pound stripers the lake is known for. Cannon Fishing Carolina, guided by Captain William Cannon, runs the same pattern, taking clients after striped bass and catfish and leaning into fall bookings once the water starts to turn. None of these operations disappear in summer, but the trip reports and guide commentary consistently point to fall as the stretch where the fishing gets easier to predict and the fish get easier to find shallow.
A typical fall morning out of either ramp looks close to this:
- Trucks arrive at the ramp around sunrise, timed to the window guides describe as when striped bass are most active.
- Live herring gets bought or netted before launch, since it remains the single most effective bait for stripers on this lake once the fish are keyed in on baitfish schools.
- Boats idle out past the no-wake zone and start watching electronics for schooled baitfish rather than blind-casting open water.
- Bait gets free-lined or fished under a slip float near marked schools, close to points and submerged trees where guides say stripers hold.
- Most guided trips run four to six hours, built around whichever window, dawn or dusk, is delivering the more consistent bite that week.
That sequence repeats at both ramps across the whole of that September-through-November stretch, and it's the reason the parking areas fill up on weekday mornings when you'd expect them to be empty. Weekday retirees, guide clients, and locals squeezing in a trip before work all converge on the same short window because the fish do.
What This Actually Looks Like If You Already Live Here
None of this is a secret to anyone who's fished this stretch of Lake Murray for more than a season, but it explains a pattern a lot of Gilbert residents notice without quite naming it. The town doesn't get quieter as summer ends. It gets busier in a specific, narrow way. More trucks with trailers idling at Koon Landing before seven in the morning. A steadier stream of boats staging out of Siesta Cove instead of the scattered weekend traffic of July. The Marina Mart running low on herring by mid-morning on a Saturday.
It's a rhythm built entirely around water temperature rather than the school calendar or a tourism season, which is part of what makes it feel like a local thing rather than an event anyone advertises. If you've wondered why the road past Koon Landing suddenly has more truck-and-trailer traffic than it did in July, that's your answer. The lake didn't get more popular. The fish got hungrier, and the people who live here know exactly what to do about it.
If you're already calling Gilbert home and want more of this kind of local detail, or if you're weighing a move to this side of Lake Murray and want someone who actually knows which ramp the locals use, Marcy Glover is a phone call away. Let's Connect.
