Southeast Georgia Fishing Reports With Capt. Bert Deener – April 4, 2025

Christopher Quiggins holds an Alapaha River channel catfish that weighed 13-lbs., 14.78-ozs. to set a benchmark river record for the Alapaha.

Fishing is heating up with the current warm-up! The flatwater produced the best reports this week. Rivers are still high but are getting fishable.

Alapaha River: The exciting news from the river this week was an Angler Award and new river record channel catfish caught by Christopher Quiggins. He fooled the giant with a minnow. It pulled the scales down to just shy of 13-lbs., 15-ozs., and measured 31 inches long.

St. Marys River: The Temple Landing, recently rebuilt by the GA Wildlife Resources Division, is scheduled to reopen by the time you read this. The weather didn’t always cooperate, but they were able to do a great job with the rebuild. The new facilities will serve boaters and anglers well for decades to come.

Okefenokee Swamp: Buck Johnson fished the east side on Friday and did well on warmouth. He pitched chartreuse pearl artificials on Zombi Eye jig heads to shoreline cover and landed 33 warmouth, two pickerel and four bowfin. The second pickerel he caught put on a show. It was a good one that fought hard, angled toward the corner of the boat and jumped just perfectly to land in the back of the boat. That’s the first one in years that’s jumped in his boat when he had a hook in it (occasionally one will jump in the boat when you are running along).

A couple of Blackshear anglers fished the east side Saturday morning and caught 23 warmouth, four fliers, five bowfin and two pickerel. They pitched crickets on 1/16-oz. Mirage Jigs and Jiffy Jigs for their warmouth. Black/chartreuse and jackfish-colored Dura-Spins produced their bowfin and pickerel. Their biggest pickerel was 18 1/2 inches and pushed 2 pounds. The most recent water level on the Folkston side was 121.34 feet.

Local Ponds: Jimmy Zinker started catching some big bass this week on topwaters. His biggest, a 7-lb., 8-oz. toad, sucked down a Musky Jitterbug on Friday. A Squeaker Trophy Bass Buzzbait fooled two big ones this week at 6-lbs., 10-ozs. and 6-lbs., 9-ozs. A 7-pounder ate a big plastic worm.

Shane and Joshua Barber fished an area pond on Saturday and caught about a half-dozen bass. Their biggest was a 5-lb., 2-oz. fish that inhaled a swimbait. Some of the others bit stick baits and topwater frogs (they had a 4-pounder on the frog). He fished a pond Tuesday evening and caught five bass and three pickerel. The jackfish was 3 pounds! Most ate a swimbait, but one or two ate a stick worm.

My wife Teresa and I fished a local pond on Tuesday morning. We caught a bunch (28 total), but they were all small. The outliers were individual largemouth bass, flier and brown bullhead. The majority of the fish were bluegill and crappie. The fish ate bruiser Satilla Spins, chartreuse back pearl 2-inch Keitech swimbaits on 1/16-oz. Flashy Jigheads, Bream Spin in-line spinners and 1/16-oz. Mirage Jigs tipped with crickets. It was a fun morning of setting the hook, but nothing was picture-worthy.

Saltwater (Georgia Coast): A local charter captain fished Wednesday and did well for trout and reds. They caught both over-slot and slot-size reds. They also had some big trout, including two over 20 inches. Another captain took his cousin Tom Pollihan in the Brunswick area on Wednesday, and they worked two hours for three redfish, but one was Tom’s biggest ever. He fooled his 28-incher with a dead shrimp. They caught the other two on dead shrimp, as well.

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.

River gages on April 3 were:
Clyo on the Savannah River – 6.6 feet and rising
Abbeville on the Ocmulgee – 6.6 feet and rising
Doctortown on the Altamaha – 9.0 feet and falling
Waycross on the Satilla – 10.2 feet and rising
Atkinson on the Satilla – 9.8 feet and falling
Statenville on the Alapaha – 7.0 feet and falling
Macclenny on the St Marys – 5.8 feet and falling
Fargo on the Suwannee – 10.9 feet and falling

First quarter moon is April 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].