I hope that each of you had a wonderful Christmas! The wintertime warmup this week is improving fishing.
The Okefenokee, ponds and saltwater are probably your best bets this weekend.
River gauges as of December 25:
• Doctortown on the Altamaha – 4.7 feet and steady
• Lumber City on the Ocmulgee – 2.0 feet and steady
• Clyo on the Savannah – 4.4 feet and rising
• Statenville on the Alapaha – 2.1 feet and falling
• Waycross on the Satilla – 5.7 feet and falling
• Atkinson on the Satilla – 4.2 feet and falling
• Quitman on the Withlacoochee – 1.7 feet and steady
• Macclenny on the St. Marys – 2.0 feet and steady
• Fargo on the Suwannee – 2.2 feet and falling Satilla River – A Waycross area angler fished the river at Jamestown and caught a nice mess of specks. He used live minnows to fool them.
Docker Deal went to the river and had a blast catching mudfish and a nice bass on a BFS combo with a 6-lb. test mono. He caught them by using beetle spins and small spinnerbaits.
Withlacoochee River – Jim O’Conner hit the river in search of some suwannee bass. He caught a total of seven up to 1-lb. 4-oz., and also caught two nice largemouth (biggest weighed 4-1/2 lbs.) on an 1/8 oz. jig.
Paradise Public Fishing Area (near Tifton) – The crappie bite is starting to fire up at Paradise. A Waycross area angler fished Lake Patrick and caught a nice mess of specks on live minnows.
Another angler recently caught 19 from the bank on jigs.
Lakes/Ponds – My dad (Shane Barber) and I went fishing at a local lake.
We had to work for our fish but managed to catch six bass with the biggest weighing around 2 1/2 pounds and an 18-inch pickerel. Swimbaits, soft plastics, and a Rapala jointed minnow fooled them.
A Homerville area angler reported fishing a pond catching a couple of nice bass.
Okefenokee Swamp – Captain Bert Deener had two great guide trips on the west side recently.
He took Hayes and Jackson (from Atlanta) on a fatherson fishing trip. They caught 11 bowfin and a 19-inch pickerel. Jackson caught his first fish (totally by himself).
Trolling Dura-Spins was the ticket. The best colors were crawfish-brass, lemon-lime, and white-white blade. Hayes caught the biggest fish of the trip at 4-lb., 9-oz., and Jackson's 20-inch bowfin earned him a Youth Angler Award from the GA Wildlife Resources Division.
Ian and Hunter of Chicago, Ill., fished with Bert and they caught a total of 31 fish, and added four new species to their catch list (bowfin, flier, chain pickerel and warmouth). They used lemon-lime, fire tiger-chartreuse, and crawfish-brass dura spins to catch the big fish.
Fliers bit pink sallies and the warmouth ate a crawfish warmouth wacker jig.
I fished the east side and the fish were ready. The bite was slow to start the morning, but turned around noon. I caught 31 bowfin and three jackfish up to 18 inches by casting and trolling black/chartreuse and firetiger dura spins.
On the last cast of the day, I threw a black/chartreuse dura spin up a mouth of a prairie lake and caught my personal best bowfin at 28 inches (weighed around nine lbs.).
Saltwater (Ga. Coast) – Scott Smith and his fatherin- law fished the Brunswick area in windy weather conditions.
They caught around 40 redfish, a couple keeper-sized sheepshead, and a few nice-sized black drum. Live shrimp and jigs were the ticket, but shrimp worked best.
Captain Tim Cutting and John Greene fished the St. Simons area tricking 40 trout into biting (12 were keepers). They used prawn USA shrimp and fourseven lures swimbaits to catch the trout.
Jay Turner and his son fished Christmas morning by walking the bank in the Savannah area. They caught seven nice trout and a flounder by throwing 3-inch keitech swimbaits on zombie eye jigheads.
I also got some reports this week of some anglers catching whiting around Jekyll Island.
Keaton Beach, Fla. – Captain Pat McGriff went in search of black sea bass and caught 17 of the tasty fish and some nice trout also. The fish bit assassin plastic swimbaits rigged on jigheads.
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/.
