This has been typical late winter weather this week – all over the place!
It’s a challenge, but rewards can be excellent this time of year if you pick right. The bass, crappie, seatrout, redfish, flier, pickerel, and bowfin bites are very good right now.
River gauges Thursday, March 6 were:
• Clyo on the Savannah River – 6.3 feet and rising
• Abbeville on the Ocmulgee – 5.4 feet and rising
• Doctortown on the Altamaha – 9.8 feet and falling
• Waycross on the Satilla – 10.2 feet and falling
• Atkinson on the Satilla – 10.1 feet and falling
• Statenville on the Alapaha – 8.0 feet and falling
• Macclenny on the St Marys – 4.2 feet and falling
• Fargo on the Suwannee – 6.0 feet and steady
Okefenokee Swamp – Brentz McGhin fished the east side and had a great time pulling on bowfin and pickerel.
He trolled black/chartreuse- chartreuse blade and jackfish-colored Dura-Spins for all of his fish. He ended up catching and releasing about 25 bowfin and kept seven pickerel for supper.
Tom Lanyi came down from Pennsylvania and met up with Capt. Tim Cutting in Brunswick. They drove to the west side to fish with me.
We had a blast in the middle of the day catching lots of bowfin and a really nice chain pickerel. We started the day pitching 1/16-oz. Mirage Jigs tipped with dead minnows and caught several dozen bowfin before Capt. Tim started flinging a Chatterbait.
Tom got in on the action and caught several nice bowfin working the vibrating jig near the bottom. They switched to Redfish Wrecker Spinnerbaits and kept catching bowfin until the trip was over.
When the smoke head cleared, they had caught 73 fish (72 bowfin and a pickerel just shy of 20 inches). Their biggest bowfin weighed 6-lb., 10oz., 6-6, 5-12, and 5-2.
David Montgomery came down from Cave Spring to fish with me in the swamp. We fished the east side in gale force winds Thursday and still caught a total of 20 fish.
The most noteworthy was a 1 1/2-pound bass that ate his lemon-lime Dura-Spin he was casting. That’s only the second bass ever caught in my boat while fishing in the swamp.
David had his first bowfin and first pickerel during the trip. His biggest bowfin was 3-lb., 12-oz. and biggest pickerel was 20 inches. The 3 fliers were all big 8 1/2-inch fish.
Two of them ate a prototype bream spinner. The other inhaled a crawfish- colored Warmouth Whacker Jig. Lemonlime, black/chartreusechartreuse blade, and jackfish-colored Dura-Spins were tops for pickerel and bowfin.
The most recent water level on the Folkston side was 120.98 feet and at SC Foster State Park was 4.72 feet.
Local Ponds – Chip Lafferty had a great evening in a Brunswick area pond. He flung blue flake wacky-rigged worms and caught four bass weighing 21-lb., 14-oz. The big female bass were starting to move shallow.
Jimmy Zinker caught a bunch of bass in Worth County ponds, but none as big as he likes. A white spinnerbait and big Shad Rap did the damage this week on mid-sized fish. He caught six bass and two of them were between 4-5 pounds.
A Brunswick angler fished a local pond and caught eight bass up to about four pounds. All of them ate shad-colored crankbaits.
Another angler fishing the same pond had several bass up to five pounds.
Joshua Barber fished a Manor-area pond and caught about a dozen fish. He had a few of his eight bass hit a Texas-rigged worm, and the crappie and other five bass ate live minnows.
Chad Lee and Daniel Johnson fished an Almaarea pond and put it on the crappie. They had 20 slabs. The biggest were 15-inchers. They used an Assassin Tiny Shad on a Zombie Eye Jighead for their fish.
A couple of Blackshear anglers fished a southwest Georgia pond and had an epic day. They caught 55 crappie and kept 37 of them in approximately six hours. The fish ranged from 10 1/2 to 13 1/4 inches and ate 1/16-oz. Mirage Jigs and Jiffy Jigs.
Savannah River – Mark Vick and Thomas Carroll fished the river and got on warmouth and crappie. The crappie bite slowed some with the rising river, but they still caught eight slabs.
They also fooled 14 nice warmouth. All of their fish ate Tennessee shad Spectacular Jigs or popsicle Warmouth Whacker Jigs.
Daniel Rhodes and his dad fished a different section of the river and had a monster mudfish on a black/chartreuse Specktacular Jig. They also had several warmouth and big fliers.
