The fall bite is breaking wide open in most places – saltwater and freshwater. Even the rivers are picking up right now as they drop out.
Alapaha River – Stan Rhodes and David McGlamry fished the middle Alapaha River had a good catch of panfish.
They had crappie, bluegills, redbreasts, crappie, and catfish. The crappie were the most impressive at 1.82, 1.35 and 1.17 pounds apiece. Those are slabs. They caught their fish on crawfish and chartreuse bruiser Satilla Spins, minnows, and crickets.
Altamaha/Ocmulgee Rivers – Miles Zachary has been catching bass in both rivers. The bass are still in the current. He has been catching them on 1/4-oz. BDD buzzbaits, crankbaits, and green pumpkin Trick Worms (Texas-rigged).
He said that the water is dropping and clearing up well, especially in the Ocmulgee. Most of the bass have been on the small side, but I did hear about a 5-fish limit that weighed in the upper teens.
Satilla River – Silas Harris had the biggest bass I heard of last week from the Satilla. It looked to be between six and seven pounds from the photo.
He caught the big one and others by pitching a dark colored baby brush hog to current breaks. He was using heavy line and big, strong hooks to get them out of the cover.
St. Marys River – Matt Rouse and his grandson, Noah, walked the bank of the upper St. Marys and caught panfish (stumpknocker, warmouth, and bluegill), pickerel, catfish, and bowfin. The biggest bowfin was 6.8 pounds.
Noah caught panfish by flinging a white curly-tail grub under a float, while Matt fished live bait.
Okefenokee Swamp – Bill Stewart and I fished the east side. We did a lot of running around checking spots for my guide trip the next day.
We connected with a couple of really big bowfin (7-lb., 8-oz. and 8-lb., 9oz). One ate a Dura-Spin while casting and the other while trolling. Lemon-lime was the color for both big fish.
We had a total of 36 fish, including an 18-inch pickerel and a big flier (the rest were bowfin). The best color Dura-Spins were lemon-lime, crawfish-brass blade, and fire tiger-chartreuse blade.
I was able to fool a few bowfin with a bladed fly (jackfish and electric chicken colors), as well.
Brian Berry came down on vacation from Kentucky and fished with me on the east side. He ended up catching 17 fish during the trip and added four new species (bowfin, pickerel, flier, and Florida gar) to his catch list.
The fish were finicky that day early in the trip, but we got on a good area of about 100 yards where we caught most of the fish by casting jackfish Dura-Spins. We also caught fish on lemon-lime Dura-Spins and a couple fish on a prototype lure.
The most recent water level on the Folkston side was 120.95 feet.
Dodge County Public Fishing Area (near Eastman) – Ken Burke fished the lake for about 4 1/2 hours and caught seven bass weighing a total of 13 1/2 pounds. His biggest were 3.5, 2.75, and 2.5 pounds.
Local Ponds – Jimmy Zinker and Joshua Barber fished a pond on a very windy day and worked hard for their fish. They each caught one bass.
Jimmy fished a Worth County pond and fooled them with Jitterbugs and buzzbaits. He’s had some good fish, but nothing over six pounds. His daytime fish have been eating walking baits, and nighttime fish have been chewing Jitterbugs and buzzbaits.
Chad Lee healed from his yellow jacket attack and went fishing catching five bass flinging spinnerbaits and stick worms. The biggest he landed was three pounds.
Saltwater (Ga. Coast) – The winds were bad but layed down to fishable levels around the middle of last week.
Brian Berry fished with me in the Brunswick area and we whacked the redfish. We fished the creek mouths around low tide and put live shrimp on the bottom with 3/16-oz. Redfish Wrecker Jigheads and 1/8-oz. Shrimp Hooks for our fish.
Brian caught his first redfish, black drum, sheepshead, and a couple smaller species during the trip. We ended up catching 21 redfish up to 29 inches (kept six and tagged and released 15). Black drum up to 16 inches and sheepshead up to 15 inches were mixed in with them.
Capt. Duane Harris fished with Tom Pollihan and Rick Murphy in the Brunswick area. They caught a total of 26 fish including redfish, trout, black drum, ladyfish, etc.
A couple of days later he fished the same areas with Kellen Pollihan and they caught 11 redfish. All of the fish for both trips were on dead shrimp.
Capt. Chris Ruff got on redfish with the dropping water temperatures. He caught a few trout here and there, but they were slow. A few flounder, black drum and sheepshead were also eating his live shrimp under Ichthys floats.
Don Harrison fished with two friends, Lee and Ed, in the Crooked River area and had a tough time in the extreme winds. They caught about a halfdozen trout each day, and Lee’s 25-inch redfish was the biggest catch.
