Alapaha River Bass & Bream

Chance Forsythe caught this impressive Alapaha River redbreast this past month while fishing with his dad near Stockton.

Almost every GON fishing story involves a local expert, most often it’s someone with hundreds, if not thousands, of hours spent on the subject body of water. I’ve worked on many such stories through the years with GON, and it amazes me how much you can learn through the experience of others. I’ll go ahead and tell you that this isn’t that type of story. The silver lining in all of this is that though there’s no expert to learn from, you really don’t need one to have success this month on the Alapaha River. Read on and I’ll tell you just what I mean.

This story begins with a good buddy of mine, Jacob Crews, deciding to make a first-time trip to the Alapaha to try his luck on the often overlooked south Georgia river. He managed 30 or so fish (multiple species of bream and several bass) his first afternoon on the river and then followed it up by catching another 40 fish of a mixed bag a few days later.

Jacob is a die-hard Satilla River fisherman like myself, so when he told me I really needed to shift gears and give the Alapaha a try, that’s exactly what I did, and boy did the results surprise me.

I fished a couple different stretches of the river and made four trips to the Alapaha while working on this story, all of which were successful. That in itself tells me you don’t need an expert for this story because if I can catch them, anyone can. Here’s a breakdown of what I learned while fishing the river.

Location: I focused my efforts on two locations while working on this story, and both produced fish equally, despite having their differences when it comes to geography.

The first area I targeted was near the town of Willacoochee, where the Highway 135 bridge intersects the river. It is important to note there is no boat ramp here, though in my opinion a boat wouldn’t do much good due to how shallow the river runs. Before planning a trip to this stretch, be sure to check the river gauge located in the town of Alapaha at https://waterdata.usgs.gov/monitoring-location/02316000. What you’re looking for is a level of 2 to 3 feet on the gauge. Lower than 2 feet and you’ll be dragging your kayak long stretches over extremely shallow water, and much higher than 3 feet and you’ll be battling the current more than focusing on fishing. It’s a small window to get in, but when it’s set up right, success is near certain.

I fished here three times, all of which I elected to go downriver. I only did this because the fishing was so good I didn’t want to change anything up, but with that said, I suspect the fishing upriver from the bridge is pretty similar.

As soon as you put in your kayak and paddle approximately 100 yards, there is a deep bluff on your right. Start fishing here, as there are plenty of good fish located within sight of the bridge. Echoing that, I noticed that many of the biggest fish we caught on our trips to the river were within 300 yards or so of where we put in.

As you work your way downriver, the scenery won’t change too much. Long, super-shallow stretches give way to curves in the river with bluff walls that line deeper water. The deeper pools harbor the majority of the fish, but as you drift through shallow stretches, it’s important to pay attention to areas along the bank where the water drops off a foot or two deeper than surrounding areas. Usually a small pool, especially ones with structure of some sort, will hold fish that wait to ambush prey that passes by.

I usually fish and float my way down to the train tracks that cross the river, and then I work my way back to my truck. This trip normally takes me until about noon, give or take an hour.

While working on this story, I also fished the river near the town of Stockton. This area is drastically different from the section of river near Willacoochee. For starters, there is a boat ramp and a large parking area that are both well maintained. I was surprised when I fished the area that although it was the weekend, I had the entire river to myself. There were no other boats on the water. The water here is much deeper, and you can run a good-sized jonboat quite a distance in both directions. I used the same gauge to monitor this section as in Willacoochee, and I’d say you can fish in a bigger boat in this area if you have 3 to 5 feet of water. A kayak would work well if the gauge is reading 4 feet or less.

Upriver from the ramp, you’ll encounter some bends in the river that consist of bluff walls and adjacent sandbars, but a good majority of what you’ll see is slow-moving stretches with tall banks on both sides. You can fish upriver from the ramp a good distance without obstacle, until you come to the rocks.

By rocks, I don’t mean one or two small boulders. No, I’m talking several hundred yards of shallow-water rocks that under normal river conditions are tough to navigate a kayak over, and doing it in a large boat, especially during low water levels, would be all but impossible. The good news is there are plenty of fish to be caught from the boat ramp up to the rocks, and as you work your way back downriver, the area just past the boat ramp is loaded with fish, too. Here you’ll find slow-moving water and deep oak and cypress-lined banks that hold a multitude of fish, especially some big bull bluegill and stumpknocker.

Though I didn’t have the opportunity to fish them for this story, I’ve also heard good fishing reports from local anglers about both the Lakeland section of the river and the ramp that is located near the town of Alapaha. I’ve been told that Lakeland fishes similar to the Stockton area, as you can get around in this portion of the river pretty well with a small jonboat. The town of Alapaha is farther upriver and much more shallow in sections, thus making a kayak or small sneak boat a better option for getting around.

Lures/Techniques: I’m not going to dive off too terribly deep here, because as mentioned earlier, I’m nowhere close to being an expert on the river. Here’s what worked well for me when I fished the river.

For bream, I did all of my fishing with a GA Boy Lures Swamp Spider (a foam topwater bug I produce locally in south Georgia). There’s no sales pitch here because you could use just about any bream bug you can find, and it would be effective on the Alapaha, especially during the early parts of October before the water temps start to significantly drop. When it comes to the best color for bug fishing, I’m using white 90 percent of the time, and if the water is running on the clear side, I opt for more natural colors, like brown or black.

You’ll do well fishing a bug anywhere where the water drops off, such as bluff walls and the back sides of sandbars. Don’t overlook long, shallow stretches where there are small areas of slightly deeper water. These almost always hold fish, and it will surprise you just how big of a fish will hold in a small pool that is only 2 or 3 feet deep.

I make long casts with my spider with a medium-light spincast setup to avoid fish seeing me. This is made easier by putting a small piece of plastic worm on the shank of the hook to add weight to the bug. With this setup and a little practice, casts of 30 feet or more are both achievable and accurate. I fish my spider by giving it a wiggle or two, followed by a brief pause of one to three seconds. I repeat the process until I’ve worked my bug out 6 to 8 feet from the bank.

I hope you’re able to make a trip down to the Alapaha River this month and see for yourself just how good of a fishery this river can be. Whether you tackle the upper stretches in a kayak or drop your trusty jonboat in down around Stockton, it’s bound to be a good time. Don’t be surprised if you come around the corner and see me because I’m planning to be on the river every chance I get!

Editor’s Note: To view some of the trips Craig made while fishing the Alapaha River, along with a host of other fishing trips, head over to his channel GA BOY OUTDOORS on YouTube. To connect with Craig on Facebook, look him up on his personal page or his business page GA Boy Lures.

Craig James & Son Colt Set Three New Alapaha River Records

Craig James with the new Alapaha River redbreast record.

On Aug. 31, Craig James, along with his son, Colt, managed to connect with a big redbreast that was able to edge out the former Alapaha River record. It was one of three Alapaha fish the James boys put in the record book recently.

“I had never fished the river before, and the only reason we made a trip over there was because my good friend Jacob Crews, who actually set the record a week before, had told me just how good the fishing was,” said Craig.

Taking Jacob’s advice, the pair of anglers arrived at the river just as daylight was breaking and launched their two-man Crescent Crew kayak.

“We started fishing right at the bridge and caught our first good redbreast within a couple of minutes with the truck still in sight,” said Craig.

Over the next couple of hours, the father and son continued to float and fish downriver, getting a bite on nearly every cast.

“We were fishing a popping bug known as a Swamp Spider that we produce through my company, GA Boy Lures. On just about every throw, we were having small fish slap at it that couldn’t quite get the hook, but every 10 or 15 casts, we were picking up a good fish,” Craig added.

Around 9:30, the anglers approached a deep bend in the river, suspecting that big fish might be holding beneath the black tannic water. Craig fired a cast, and a few seconds later a fish erupted on the topwater bug.

“Right when he hit it, I knew it was a better fish because he was really showing out on my light action rod. After a few seconds, I was able to get him up in the boat, and that’s when I knew he might be big enough to make the GON records.

Craig immediately put his fish on ice to try and keep it from losing any weight, and the pair of anglers began to fish their way back upriver to the boat ramp, catching several more nice fish in the process.

“We took out about 10:45 or so, loaded up and headed to the Waresboro Post Office that is near my home to put the fish on certified scales. We knew that the fish was gonna be real close one way or the other,” said Craig.

Craig’s fish pushed the scales down to 10.1 ounces, barely enough to edge out the previous record of 10 ounces set a week before by Jacob Crews.

Then, on Sept. 6, Craig set the bar for the spotted sunfish with a 6.24-oz. fish. Two days later, Craig’s son, Colt, weighed in an 8.74-oz. warmouth to put his name in the book beside his dad.

“We got some of these benchmark fish on the books in the GON Lake and River Records, but I can assure you this is the tip of the iceberg, as there are some really big fish swimming in this river,” said Craig.

Alapaha River Bass Feeding Up For Winter

By Craig James

The bass fishing in the Alapaha is some of the best I’ve found in south Georgia, and I managed to tangle with several while working on this story. Though we caught several while bug fishing for bream, a wacky-rigged worm proved to be super effective when targeting bass specifically.

The setup I had success fishing was a medium-light spinning combo spooled with 20-lb. braid and a 15-lb. fluorocarbon leader of about 6 feet in length. I used a 1/0 weedless wacky-worm hook, and for the worm itself, I went with a rotten banana color (brown and yellow). However, I’m not sure color even mattered much to these super-aggressive fish. I used the worm to target the same areas that I used the Swamp Spider to target panfish, and it seemed that anywhere the water dropped off near some sort of wooden structure was nearly a guarantee of getting bit. I used a twitch followed by a pause of two or three seconds to give the weightless worm time to slowly fall in front of fish suspended in cover. It’s important when you get a bite to try and give the fish an extra second to eat it, as they will often hold the worm in the corner of their mouth before inhaling it.

Though I didn’t spend much time fishing them, buzzbaits are also a good choice to throw this month as cooling water temps have fish ready to feed ahead of the coming winter, and crawfish-imitation baits are a good option to bounce along the bottom, especially if we get hit with an early cold front that sends the water temperatures plummeting.