Get ready for some great fishing over the next month as the water warms and rivers drop out to perfect levels.
River gauges Thursday, April 24 were:
• Clyo on the Savannah River – 6.4 feet and falling
• Abbeville on the Ocmulgee – 5.0 feet and falling
• Doctortown on the Altamaha – 10.0 feet and falling
• Waycross on the Satilla – 7.9 feet and falling
• Atkinson on the Satilla – 8.6 feet and falling
• Statenville on the Alapaha – 7.8 feet and falling
• Macclenny on the St Marys – 2.9 feet and falling
• Fargo on the Suwannee – 4.6 feet and falling
Satilla River – The first angler award-sized redbreast was caught on the Satilla. It was 1.08 pounds and caught on a crankbait.
Scott, Raigan, and Amiee fished the upper Satilla and caught a 5-gallon bucket of nice catfish by fishing shrimp on the bottom. Their biggest was 2 1/2 pounds. They also had some nice redbreasts on Satilla Spins.
The key on the Satilla is to fish it when it’s just barely high enough to get your boat around the numerous sandbars and even better fishing if you have to drag over and around a few.
That will probably happen during the next couple of weeks for most boats.
St. Marys River – Dale and Emma Anderson fished the river and caught a giant bluegill by flinging a chartreuse back pearl 2-inch Keitech on a Zombie Eye Jighead.
Their biggest was 1-lb., 6-oz. They had two exactly 1-lb., 0-oz. They ended up keeping 43 fish, including bluegills, redbreasts, and six crappie.
Suwannee River – Bill Stewart and Ronnie Music fished the river catching a good mess of catfish by fishing shrimp on the bottom. They had 34 bullheads and two channel cats.
Okefenokee Swamp – I fished the east side for just a few hours and had a productive trip. I started by pitching Mirage Jigs and caught three nice warmouth and a good spotted sunfish (stumpknocker) in a short time then went for the big fish.
Both casting and trolling produced bowfin and pickerel. I ended up catching and releasing a total of 22 fish. Three of the pickerel were pushing 20 inches, with the biggest right around 21 inches.
Chuck Dean fished the east side and caught and released a monster bowfin by trolling a fire tigerchartreuse blade Dura-Spin. It was 30 inches (he didn’t have a scale), which would generally be a little over 10 pounds.
He and his daughter had a great rest of the trip looking around at the gators, flowers and other animals after that one catch.
Billy Bice and William Royster fished with me and caught a total of 42 fish during their half-day trip. Trolling produced about 2/3 of the fish, but casting was also effective.
Their biggest bowfin was 7-lb., 10-oz., and biggest pickerel was 20 inches. The same three colors of Dura-Spins worked best, although we tried others.
The most recent water level on the Folkston side was 120.70 feet.
Local Ponds – Chip Lafferty had the best bass report I heard of this week, and it was from a Brunswick area pond.
He had 5 fish that weighed 22-lb., 3-oz. One of them was on a blue glimmer shad Wobble Blade, one on a Chatterbait, and the rest were on a Texas-rigged blue worm.
Buck Johnson fished a Waycross area pond after the sun came up and caught 15 bluegills and a small bass by pitching a white Mr. Jet fly.
Shane and Joshua Barber fished a couple ponds for bass. They caught their biggest (a 3pounder) on a Satilla Spin Magnum Spinnerbait.
Saltwater (Ga. Coast) – Tom and Rick fished the Brunswick area catching five redfish, two trout, two flounder and a black drum.
Don Harrison fished with a friend out of Crooked River State Park and the bite was slow. Their first 3 trout were 16, 17, and 19 inches, but they were almost an hour apart. They added another three throwbacks to the
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.
