The rivers are dropping out, tides are better in saltwater, and fish in ponds, lakes, and the Okefenokee are feeding with reckless abandon. Pretty much pick where you want to fish and you should catch fish River gauges Thursday, May 1 were:
• Clyo on the Savannah River – 5.8 feet and rising
• Abbeville on the Ocmulgee – 6.1 feet and rising
• Doctortown on the Altamaha – 8.3 feet and rising
• Waycross on the Satilla – 6.2 feet and falling
• Atkinson on the Satilla – 5.9 feet and falling
• Statenville on the Alapaha – 4.0 feet and falling
• Macclenny on the St Marys – 2.6 feet and rising
• Fargo on the Suwannee – 3.2 feet and falling
Altamaha River – The panfish reports were decent this week from the backwaters. Lower river reports were better than the upper river.
Satilla River – I had several very good reports and all of them bragged about how fat the redbreasts are.
Seth Carter floated the river twice and caught over 100 fish each day on Satilla Spins (rooster bugchartreuse blade was especially deadly).
Kyle Meyer and Neal Bulla fished the upper river casting Satilla Spins and flinging poppers on a fly rod and caught over 30 redbreasts, bluegill, and stumpknockers.
Stan Rhodes and Dave McGlamry fished the upper Satilla and had a great day. They had a great bite early, and then it slowed as the sun got up. When the smoke cleared, they had 27 keeper redbreasts, bluegills (some were the big, purple-faced rascals), and channel catfish. They caught their fish on Satilla Spins (crawfish and black/chartreuse), crickets, and crawdads.
The water in the upper river is getting right for floating. Expect to drag over sandbars and around trees.
St. Marys River – Randy Hanson fished the middle river and caught a nice mess of catfish. He put chicken livers on the bottom for 7 good-sized cats.
Suwannee River – Bill Stewart and a friend fished and caught and released 29 fish total. They had a couple big fliers, a 14-inch largemouth bass, a giant bluegill, a dozen stumpknockers, four pickerel up to 22 inches, and the rest bowfin up to five pounds.
The panfish ate coachdog, black/chartreuse, and crawfish 1/8-oz. Satilla Spins, while the pickerel, bass, and bowfin bit crawfish-brass blade Dura-Spins. The most impressive catch was their stumpknockers. They had four of them weighing 9ozs. each.
Larry and Joshua Barber fished the river and caught 15 bullhead catfish, a couple bowfin, and a warmouth by fishing shrimp on the bottom.
Shane and Joshua Barber caught 10 pickerel (jackfish), a dozen spotted sunfish (stumpknockers), eight bowfin, a bass, and a gar. The panfish ate a bumblebee-colored Satilla Spin, while the other species ate crawfish or black/chartreuse Dura-Spins, bass-style spinnerbaits, or beetlespins.
The river is low enough that it’s tough to get around.
Okefenokee Swamp – I fished the west side for two hours to check the latest bite and caught bowfin constantly.
I started casting Dura-Spins for about a halfhour and caught several bowfin then switched to bottom fishing with cut flier and a Mirage jig until I ran out of bait. Then, I trolled toward the ramp for about a half-hour and caught them doing that, as well.
I ended up catching 34 fish total (an 18-inch pickerel and 33 bowfin up to five pounds). The best Dura-Spin color was crawfish-brass blade.
Chuck Dean fished the east side and caught 15 bowfin up to 3-lb., 7-oz. He tried trolling and switched to casting and started picking up fish. He threw jackfish, red/white, and fire tiger-chartreuse blade Dura-Spins and caught them on all those colors.
Matt Rouse fished the east side boat basin and caught four pickerel up to 16 inches in about 10 minutes by flinging a blue and silver Rooster Tail spinner.
The water level on the west side was 4.45 feet on the gauge at the park boat basin. The most recent water level on the Folkston side was 120.70 feet.
Local Ponds – Jimmy Zinker fished ponds and lakes in south Georgia and north Florida at night targeting trophy bass. He caught a bunch of smaller bass with Squeaker Trophy Bass Buzzbaits and his customized Jitterbugs. His biggest was a respectable 5-lb., 9-oz. bass.
Daytime bass fishing reports were good. Lots of smaller bass were caught on wacky-rigged worms, spinnerbaits, and topwaters in southeast Georgia ponds.
Saltwater (Ga. Coast) – The big new moon tides muddied the water. I received fewer reports because of it.
Brandon Young fished the St Andrews Sound area and struggled for 3 1/2 hours to find them. On their last stop they did and caught seven fish (four redfish, three flounder). All were on a popping cork with live shrimp.
Capt. Tim Cutting fished Fourseven and Berkley plastics for some nice reds, trout, and flounder. Leslie Timmerman fished with him a day later and got on the same species.
They fished plastics, shrimp on a Redfish Wrecker Jighead, and live shrimp under a Harper Super Striker Float and caught fish on all of it. They caught both slot and overslot reds, a half-dozen flounder, and seven trout – one was a monster.
Crystal River, Fla. – Tommy Sweeney and Charles Sweat and their families fished out of Crystal River.
They caught snook, trout, bluefish, black drum and puffer fish on plastics and live bait. Tommy caught his fist snook ever (a 32-incher) during the trip. He said that it “fought like a demon-possessed shark.” 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).
