It got hot in the afternoons last week, but the water temperature most places in freshwater is upper 70s to around 80. That’s in the range where the fish usually put on the feed bag.
River guges Thursday, May 22 were:
• Clyo on the Savannah River – 12.6 feet and falling
• Abbeville on the Ocmulgee – 8.7 feet and falling
• Doctortown on the Altamaha – 10.0 feet and falling
• Waycross on the Satilla – 10.9 feet and falling
• Atkinson on the Satilla – 11.3 feet and cresting
• Statenville on the Alapaha – 3.5 feet and rising
• Macclenny on the St Marys – 2.8 feet and falling
• Fargo on the Suwannee – 5.0 feet and falling
Alapaha River – Hunner Taylor and a friend fished the river and caught well over 100 fish. They kept 56 - mostly redbreasts and bluegills. They caught them on Satilla Spins and Betts Spins.
Satilla River – Dale Anderson and Daniel Gullion fished a bush hook tournament on the lower river and won with just over 275 pounds of flatheads (10 fish limit).
They also won big fish with a 37-pounder. That was the duo’s best 10-fish limit ever. They also caught a tagged catfish during the night.
St. Marys River – Chuck Dean fished the middle river and didn’t catch many, but he made up for it with quality. He had a 1-lb., 0-oz. bluegill measuring 11 inches that smacked a Whopper Plopper he was flinging for bass.
Curtis Hazel took his new jonboat out to the middle river and caught a few redbreasts, crappie and bluegills on Satilla Spins (darker colors were best).
Okefenokee Swamp – The warmouth, pickerel, and bowfin bites are still strong on the east side.
I had Jamie Pearson on the boat. He was the high bidder for the trip I donated for the Satilla Riverkeeper fundraiser this spring. He enjoyed fishing the east side.
He pitched popsicle Warmouth Whacker Jigs and white-pink Super Sallies and caught warmouth, pickerel, and bowfin. We trolled and cast Dura-Spins for pickerel and bowfin and caught them on lemon-lime and fire tiger – chartreuse blade best. He had a total of 32 fish during the morning trip.
Greg and Rose from Houston, Texas fished with me in the middle of the day. They caught several warmouth by pitching popsicle Warmouth Whacker Jigs and whitepink Super Sallies first thing.
Rose caught her first bowfin and warmouth ever. We trolled and cast Dura-Spins for bowfin and pickerel and caught a bunch of smaller bowfin trolling, but Rose slammed a 7-lb., 1-oz. monster while casting and retrieving a fire tiger-chartreuse blade model. They caught a total of 29 fish during their half-day trip.
Buck Johnson fished the east side and caught a bunch of smaller warmouth and eight keepers in the first few hours by pitching a pink-chartreuse tail curly-tailed grub rigged on a Zombie Eye Jighead.
He fished another area and started catching bigger fish. By 11 a.m., he counted and had 24 keepers.
Curtis Hazel fished the east side and caught two bowfin and a 15-inch chain pickerel on Satilla Spins.
Matthew Gobbi caught his first-ever bowfin while fishing out of the east side. Jig.
The most recent water level on the Folkston side was 120.64 feet.
Local Ponds – Joshua Barber fished a local pond and caught a half-dozen bass up to four pounds. He fooled them with speed worms and swimbaits.
Buck Johnson fished a Waycross area pond for a little over an hour pitching a fly with a bream buster. The bream would swat at it but would not take it.
He switched to the same pink/chartreuse curly-tail and Zombie Eye Jighead he used in the swamp earlier in the week and they started eating it. He ended up catching a couple bream and four bass up to 18 inches on the small rig.
Everglades (South Fla.) – Jeff Rawlins and friends fished the Everglades canals and caught well over 600 fish in three days.
They had mostly cichlids, but they caught a few peacock bass each day (they had seven peacocks on their best day).
They threw Satilla Spins (crawfish and black/chartreuse worked best), Specktacular Jigs (chartreuse grapefruit was best after he ran out of popsicle), Flashy Jigheads with a curly-tail grub, and beetle spins for their fish. One of the days they caught all of their fish on Specktacular Jigs.
Saltwater (Ga. Coast) – Seth Carter and friends fished the St. Marys Jetties and caught some doormat flounder.
Capt. Tim Cutting said they looked for redfish on and found two schools. They caught three fish out of one school and blew out the second school after breaking off a fish.
He moved to another area the following day, but it didn’t pan out as calculated. They only had a half-dozen trout and a couple flounder. The next day was a good bite with 15 good trout, 10 flounder, and a couple reds coming over the side of the boat.
The last day was tougher with the water warming up and tides getting bigger around the New Moon. They had 10 trout and a few sheepshead.
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.co m or e-mail him (bertdeener@ yahoo.com).
