Southeast Georgia Fishing Reports With Capt. Bert Deener – May 2, 2025

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 this weekend, and you should catch fish. Pick right, and you may just have your best trip of the year.

Altamaha River: The panfish reports were decent this week from the backwaters. Lower river reports were better than the upper river. Miles Zachary won a bass tournament last weekend on the river. He is about to release a new line of buzzbaits called BDD Buzzbaits made with Gamakatsu hooks. Check them out on bertsjigsandthings.com in the near future.

Satilla River: The annual Satilla Riverkeeper Fishing Tournament is underway. For updates and information on joining the tournament (it’s not too late), check out Satilla Riverkeeper on Facebook. I had several very good reports this week, and all of them bragged about how fat the redbreasts are.

Seth Carter floated the river twice this week and caught over 100 fish each day on Satilla Spins (rooster bug-chartreuse blade was especially deadly). You can check out his adventures on YouTube.

Kyle Meyer and Neal Bulla fished the upper river on Wednesday casting Satilla Spins and flinging poppers on a fly rod and caught over 30 redbreast, bluegill and stumpknockers.

Stan Rhodes and Dave McGlamry fished the upper Satilla on Friday and had a great day. They said that the river has been as beautiful as ever. They had a great bite early, and then it slowed as the sun got up. When the smoke cleared, they had 27 keeper redbreast, bluegill (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 on Saturday and caught a nice mess of catfish. He put chicken livers on the bottom for seven good-sized cats.

Suwannee River: Bill Stewart and a friend fished the Suwannee on Friday 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 5 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 that weighed 9 ounces each (that’s BIG for a stumpknocker!).

Larry and Joshua Barber fished the river on Tuesday and caught 15 bullhead catfish, a couple bowfin and a warmouth by fishing shrimp on the bottom. Shane and Joshua Barber fished the river on Thursday and 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 on Friday to check the latest bite and caught bowfin constantly. I started casting Dura Spins for about a half-hour 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 5 pounds). The best Dura-Spin color (and only color I used) was crawfish-brass blade.

Chuck Dean fished the east side early this week and caught 15 bowfin up to 3-lbs., 7-ozs. He tried trolling, but there was too much floating vegetation. He 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 on Tuesday morning. He 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 gage 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 this week 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, but he missed an absolute giant at about midnight on Friday night. Daytime bass fishing reports were good. Lots of smaller bass were caught on wacky-rigged worms, spinnerbaits and topwaters in southeast Georgia ponds.

Saltwater (Georgia Coast): The big new moon tides muddied the water, and I received fewer reports this week because of it. Brandon Young fished the St. Andrews Sound area on Saturday and struggled for 3 1/2 hours to find them. On their last stop they caught seven fish. All were on a popping cork with live shrimp, and they had four redfish and three flounder.

A captain fished Four-Seven and Berkley plastics Wednesday for some nice reds, trout and flounder. On Thursday, Leslie Timmerman fished with him 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. They had to move around a lot on Thursday, but the fish they caught were really good quality.

After your next trip to the Georgia coast, drop off your fish carcasses in the freezer at the Waycross Fisheries Office at 108 Darling Avenue. The Coastal Resources Division collects most inshore saltwater species so that they can determine age and growth for each species. All the supplies and information cards are in the freezer. Filet your fish then drop off the carcasses in the freezer.

Wat-a-melon Bait and Tackle in Brunswick is open Friday through Tuesday each week (closed Wednesday and Thursday). They have plenty of lively shrimp and also have live worms and crickets for freshwater. For the latest information and their hours, contact them at 912.223.1379.

Crystal River, Florida: Tommy Sweeney and Charles Sweat and their families fished out of Crystal River last week. 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”.

River gages on 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
First quarter moon is May 4.

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 email him at [email protected].