Southeast Georgia Fishing Reports With Capt. Bert Deener – Feb. 14, 2025

Capt. Teddy Elrod caught this solid bass on Friday by flinging a spinnerbait in the Altamaha River.

The warm-up that is coming to an end as I write this has been great for most bites. A few trips this week were a bust because of what I call the “it’s just too pretty” factor. Sometimes the fish don’t know whether they’re in a winter or spring pattern, and they are hard to find when it’s abnormally nice weather. It appears that winter weather will return over this next week, so we are going to be back to figuring out what the fish are doing every single day. The Piedmont Region of middle Georgia got a bunch of rain out of Thursday’s system, so expect the Altamaha system rivers to rise this week.

Altamaha River: Seth Carter and a buddy had a great trip this week on the lower river. Seth caught his personal best bass—5 and change—on a crankbait. He caught a 4-pounder just a few casts later. They had a bunch of smaller fish during the trip, as well. Teddy Elrod fished with me on Friday on the lower Altamaha. We missed a great bite by two days, as the river had started rising and flowing through the woods the day we fished. We had a total of 12 fish (eight bass, two big warmouth and two bowfin), and each of us caught a 4-lb. bass as our biggest. Teddy fooled his biggest with a spinnerbait, and I coaxed mine with a green pumpkin Keitech Mad Wag Worm (TX-rigged). Bubblegum floating worms produced most of our bass, and Texas-rigged worms produced the warmouth and bowfin. I talked with a catfish angler on the river, and he had done great for 3- to 6-lb. channel catfish by running limblines. The rising water helped his cause and hurt our bass fishing. The first Catfish Legends Tournament of the year is the 15th at Balls Ferry on the Oconee River. If interested, check them out on Facebook.

Savannah River: Mark Vick and Daniel Rhodes fished the river on Friday and spanked them in the warmer water. They caught 47 fish (kept 29 slabs)—mostly crappie. They had quite a few 13- to 14-inchers in their catch. Fish were in the 10- to 12-foot depth range. They caught all of their fish on 1/16-oz. Tennessee shad Specktacular Jigs without tipping it with a minnow.

St. Marys River:  An angler reported fishing minnows on Sunday on the river and catching just over 20 crappie and 15 big warmouth. The Temple Landing is currently closed while the GA Wildlife Resources Division boat ramp crew rebuilds the ramp. It will be a much-improved facility when they finish the project. The projects typically take a few months to complete, but it is always weather and river level dependent.

Okefenokee Swamp: Brentz McGhin and Joseph Mitchell fished the east side over the weekend and caught a handful of bowfin and pickerel. Brentz’s biggest bowfin (a 7-pounder) ate a jackfish-colored Dura-Spin, but they caught most of their fish on black/chartreuse-chartreuse blade Dura-Spins. The most recent water level (Folkston side) was 120.94 feet.

Banks Lake: Tim Bonvechio fished the lake over the weekend. He didn’t catch his target bass, but he ended up catching the lake record bowfin. It weighed 10-lb., 1-oz. and was right at 30 inches long.

Local Ponds: Chad Lee got back on the water on Thursday morning at an Alma area pond. He fished from a dock and wore them out. He flung electric chicken Assassin Tiny Shads rigged on 1/16-oz. pink Zombi Eye jig heads and floated a minnow while casting. He ended up catching 30 crappie (kept 20 of them) and 10 bass. The biggest bass he landed was 3 1/2 pounds, but he also had a 5-lb. class fish break him off. His biggest crappie was 1 3/4 pounds, and he had a couple 2-pounders pull off as he tried to swing them onto the dock. He had a blast!

Cooper and Jackson fished a Bacon County pond with several family members this weekend and put it on the crappie. They caught almost 50 crappie and a couple of bass and fliers. The used a variety of Creme plastics, and color or style didn’t matter. They will be posting the trip on their YouTube channel HeyCuz Outdoors in the near future.

A Blackshear angler fished an area pond Sunday afternoon and landed 14 bass by flinging stick worms to shallow vegetation and cover. His best five bass weighed 18.75 pounds. Miles Zachary has been hitting some ponds in the Hazlehurst area and has caught bass on crawfish-colored crankbaits and spinnerbaits. Joshua Barber fished a couple ponds this week. On Saturday he fished a large pond and fooled 7 bass on plastics (he Texas-rigged them with a light weight). His biggest was 4-lb., 5-oz. That one he fooled with a stick worm rigged on a Capt. Bert’s Swimbait Head (has a spring lock on the nose). He fished a swampy lake on Monday evening and fooled a few fliers, a warmouth, two pickerel (one was a 2-lb., 8-oz. monster!), and a bowfin. The bowfin ate cut bait on the bottom, but everything else ate a chartreuse 2-inch Keitech rigged on a 1/16-oz. Mirage Jig.

David Montgomery sent me photos of several really nice bass he caught Friday while fishing a pond with jigs. A crawfish colored jig with a pumpkin plastic craw trailer fooled a half-dozen bass up to 3 pounds for him. Jimmy Zinker caught a 7-lb., 7-oz. bass on a 12-inch Mann’s worm (purple) and a 6-lb., 12-oz. bass on a No. 9 Shad Rap this week. He also caught some smaller fish, but those were his two biggest. He’s starting to get a few sniffs at his topwaters, so it won’t be too long before he starts catching some monsters.

Matt took his grandson Noah to a pond on Wednesday afternoon, and they had a blast catching and releasing 50 bluegill in a couple hours.

Noah fished with his grandfather on Wednesday afternoon and stayed hooked up almost constantly with bluegill.

Lochloosa Lake, Fla.: The crappie and bass bites were both outstanding this week from Lochloosa. I heard of multiple 10-lb. bass and a few people who caught lots of 2-plus-lb. crappie. Spider-riggers did best from the crappie reports I received, but a few folks were casting.

St. John’s River (Astor, Florida) / Crescent Lake: Jamie Hodge fished Crescent on the way home from Astor and had a cooler of big crappie. He fooled his slabs with popsicle and Tennessee shad Specktacular Jigs.

A group of friends from Brunswick fished the Astor canals over the weekend and worked for their fish, but they had some big fish up to a little over 2 pounds. Each boat had a half-dozen to a dozen crappie per day, but they were big. They threw curly tailed grubs and Keitech swimbaits on Flashy Jigheads and sickle-hook jig heads for their fish. Sean Tarpley caught his personal best crappie—a 1-lb., 13-oz. slab. One angler in their group saw a nice bass on a bed and caught it almost immediately with a wacky-rigged stick-worm. It was a 4-lb. male.

Crappie and bass will be spawning over the next month, so now is a great time to fish this area.

Saltwater (Georgia Coast): The bite was great for most folks, but I had a buddy zero on Saturday, so not everyone figured them out. The fish can’t decide if they should be in their winter holes or moving to spring areas.

Tommy and Pam Sweeney fished around docks in the Brunswick area over the weekend and whacked trout and weakfish. They set their floats 8 feet deep and floated live shrimp for 65 trout and weakfish in three hours of fishing. Most were throwbacks, but they had a blast setting the hook!

A local captain had a great trip on Sunday. He caught 27 fish (trout up to 20 inches and redfish up to 23 inches). Over half of the trout were keepers. The high ebb tide and low flood tides were best for him. He caught them on both live shrimp fished under a float and Keitech swimbaits on Zombi Eye jig heads.

Another local captain reported that the nearshore reef sheepshead bite has fired off recently. Inshore, trout were caught in good numbers in the 15 to 20-foot depths. Redfishing improved this week with the warmup.

Capt. Duane Harris fished with friends on Wednesday in the Brunswick area and put them on 20 redfish and two trout. All the reds were caught within an hour (about half-ebb tide). Most were slot fish, but a few were oversized. Mona Mounts and Lucy Thomas fished with him on Saturday and caught a bunch of trout.

Another local captain had some good trips this week. On Friday Jay and Ann McDaniel fished with him, and they had over 20 trout on Four-Seven plastics rigged on Zombi Eye jig heads, but most were short. They switched to sheepshead and had some dock monsters (four between 4 and 6 pounds apiece). They finished the trip redfishing and had three slot reds and a couple oversized reds. On Monday, his charter fished with both shrimp and plastics. They stayed hooked up, but most were small trout. They fished hard for sheepshead and caught a dozen, but only half were keepers. They finished the trip with four keeper redfish. On both days, they had lots of action, but they had to work for keepers. On Wednesday, they caught 15 trout with three keepers. They had to crawl their Bayou Brownie Shrimp (Four-Seven plastics) to get bites.

Don’t forget about the fish carcass 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 now open every day. On Monday to Thursday their hours are 6:30 a.m. to 10 and 2 p.m. to 5 and Friday through Saturday from 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. They have plenty of lively shrimp and also have live worms and crickets for freshwater. They’re on Highway 303 just north of Highway 82. For the latest information, contact them at 912.223.1379.

Keaton Beach, Florida: Capt. Pat McGriff has been helping clean up all the debris and extreme damage at Keaton Beach but is now back to chartering. This warm-up has the fish feeding well. Capt. Pat reported fishing on Monday and caught his limit of trout quickly on Paul Brown Devils in the No. 98 color (he refers to it as “Billy Pillow” because of the late angler’s love for that lure for big wintertime trout). The 18- to 19-inch trout were in 2 1/2 feet of water near the hill. That afternoon, he found some willing trout out deeper with an Assassin Sea Shad under a Cajun Thunder Float and had nine keepers with a half-dozen short trout.

River gages on Feb. 13 were:
Clyo on the Savannah River – 6.2 feet and rising
Abbeville on the Ocmulgee – 4.8 feet and rising
Doctortown on the Altamaha – 8.3 feet and rising
Waycross on the Satilla – 9.7 feet and rising
Atkinson on the Satilla – 8.8 feet and rising
Statenville on the Alapaha – 5.5 feet and rising
Macclenny on the St Marys – 4.5 feet and falling
Fargo on the Suwannee – 5.0 feet and falling

Last quarter moon is Feb. 20.

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].