Cold (and windy for most of it) – that pretty much sums up last week. Even so, some folks caught fish.
Expect the fish to be dormant in deep water with the sustained cold. If you figure out where they are, it can be awesome!
River gauges Thursday, January 9 were:
• Clyo on the Savannah River – 5.1 feet and rising
• Abbeville on the Ocmulgee – 4.8 feet and rising
• Doctortown on the Altamaha – 8.7 feet and falling
• Waycross on the Satilla – 10.9 feet and falling
• Atkinson on the Satilla – 7.7 feet and rising
• Statenville on the Alapaha – 5.3 feet and falling
• Macclenny on the St Marys – 2.7 feet and falling
• Fargo on the Suwannee – 3.3 feet and falling
Satilla River – Van Palmer fished with me for a couple of hours on the lower river, and we caught 21 fish total.
A half-dozen were bowfin up to 4-lb., 11-oz., but the vast majority were warmouth. We had a crappie and stumpknocker mixed in, as well.
Van caught his fish on a watermelon-colored Silverback Jigs Micro Jig and I caught mine on a 1/16-oz. Mirage Jig tipped with a minnow. The fish were in the deeper holes back in the slack water and thumped our offerings as we worked them along the bottom.
The neat thing is we caught all of our fish in a lake I’ve never even tried before. We were scouting and we found them.
St. Marys River – Chad Purvis caught some really nice bluegill. He caught 16 bluegills and a crappie.
Matt Rouse fished the upper St. Marys and caught a few panfish (mostly stumpknockers). He fooled them with white curly-tail grubs. He said the level is low and it’s hard to get around in a boat.
Okefenokee Swamp – The number of folks fishing the east side of the swamp last week went to zero, according to Okefenokee Adventures staff.
The most recent water level (Folkston side) was 120.78 feet.
Local Ponds – Jimmy Zinker fished a Valdosta area pond catching a 4-pound bass using his favorite buzzbaits. That was a bonus, as he was just playing.
Bass hit topwaters in winter, but the bite is usually slower than in warm weather. I heard of a few folks doing well on crappie, but no details.
St. John’s River (Astor, Fla.)/Crescent Lake – Jase, Mike and Jim fished Crescent Lake late in the week and did well on crappie fooling 43 up to about two pounds.
All of them ate artificials, and they were offshore a bit. Jase had a blast fighting a 9-pound bowfin. Slab crappie are chewing in the Astor area.
Jamie Hodge and friends whacked big fish early in the week then fished a couple days into the new year before heading home. The bite slowed for them after the strong cold front but they still caught some slabs.
Saltwater (Ga. Coast) – A friend took his daughter to the Brunswick area. They managed a couple of redfish, a keeper trout, and a few short trout but did not get on a big school.
Dane Clements and Danny Stone fished the Brunswick area and spanked the sheepshead on fiddler crabs. They caught 44 sheepshead and kept a limit in shallow water.
Capt. Tim Cutting said the stars aligned for a great bite. Monday, the warmest day, they had about 70 trout with half of them keepers. Tuesday was about half as good with frost covering his boat Wednesday.
Thursday was cold and windy again, but his anglers fished hard and managed 27 keeper trout and about 20 short fish. Most of the fish came on provoker or Christmas tree-colored Fourseven grubs on a rootbeer crackle Zombie Eye Jighead (the spring keeper version).
To monitor all the Georgia river levels, visit the USGS website (waterdata. usgs.gov/ga/nwis/rt ). For the latest marine forecast, check out www.weather.gov/jax/.
