This is some incessant cold. After the slight warmup late last week and weekend, it’s forecasted to be rainy and cold – and maybe even a little wintry weather.
River gauges Thursday, January 16 were:
• Clyo on the Savannah River – 7.4 feet and rising
• Abbeville on the Ocmulgee – 5.7 feet and rising
• Doctortown on the Altamaha – 8.3 feet and rising
• Waycross on the Satilla – 8.9 feet and falling
• Atkinson on the Satilla – 8.4 feet and falling
• Statenville on the Alapaha – 5.9 feet and falling
• Macclenny on the St. Marys – 3.6 feet and falling
• Fargo on the Suwannee – 4.1 feet and falling
Satilla River – Shane and Joshua Barber fished the lower Satilla and fooled two crappie, a 3 1/2-pound bass, and a giant chain pickerel (jackfish) with 1/16-oz. blackgreen eye Zombie Eye Jigheads and 2-inch chartreuse back pearl Keitech swimbaits.
Seth Carter fished the upper Satilla River and caught a chunky 2 1/2pound bass on a spinnerbait. He caught a few on suspending jerkbaits, also.
Bill Stewart fished with me on the lower river in the cold and with strong winds. We got on a bunch of warmouth. We tried some new oxbow lakes that I’ve never been in and fooled a total of 22 fish.
All of them ate a 1/16oz. or 3/32-oz. Mirage Jig tipped with either a minnow or a worm. We ended up with a big chain pickfew erel (jackfish), three crappie, eight bowfin up to about four pounds, and the rest were really nice warmouth.
St. Marys River – Ferman Dasher fished the upper river and worked for a handful of panfish. They just weren’t biting his beetle-spins that day.
Okefenokee Swamp – Matt Rouse took a few anglers fishing on the east side in some nasty weather. They caught a few bowfin by trolling Dura-Spins in the canal.
Crawfish and black with brass blades worked best for them. The fish were in the two- to fourpound range.
The most recent water level (Folkston side) was 120.80 feet.
Local Ponds – Jay Turner fished a Savannah area pond and fooled a dozen crappie around 3/4-pound apiece by swimming a slider jig by them. He released them.
Joshua Barber tried out his waders in a Manor area pond and caught a half-dozen crappie on minnows. He fished a Manor area pond several days later and fooled a few bowfin (mudfish), two catfish, two warmouth and a pair of chain pickerel (jackfish). He used 1/16-oz. Mirage Jigs tipped with minnows, shiners, and shrimp (for the catfish).
St. John’s River (Astor, Fla.)/Crescent Lake – Neil and Arlene Jones fished at Crescent Lake.
The crappie started getting active as the weather warmed and they fooled 16 slabs that they kept before calling it quits. They had several fish over 1 1/2 pounds. A Keitech swimbait rigged on a slider head fooled their specks.
Saltwater (Ga. Coast) – Trips varied with the bigger tides and strong winds most of the week.
Folks who chose locations with clearer water fared better than those who went where the water was muddier. I heard of a trips where folks found big schools of trout.
Justin Lee and Chaney Burke fished the Brunswick area managing four really nice fish. The oversized redfish up to 29 inches ate live shrimp fished on a jighead.
Tommy Sweeney fished from the bank in the Brunswick area and caught six trout on a hard minnow plug and three big trout in about an hour on a plastic shrimp suspended underneath a float.
Capt. Tim Cutting had a couple of trips late last week and got on the fish. The first day he went after redfish and sheepshead.
The next day they tried for stripers and broke off three before landing one before the bite slowed. They headed back east toward Hampton and finished out their trout limit.
Mid-week they had 20 throwback trout and only six keepers on all plastics. They also fooled an oversized redfish, a sheepshead, and a black drum on plastics.
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/.
Capt. Bert Deener guides fishing trips in the Okefenokee Swamp and other southeast Georgia systems and makes a variety of both fresh and saltwater fishing lures. Check his lures out at Bert’s Jigs and Things on Facebook. For a copy of his latest catalog, you can download it from his website at bertsjigsandthings. com or e-mail him (bertdeener@ yahoo.com).
