Southeast Georgia Fishing Reports With Capt. Bert Deener – Feb. 7, 2025

Owen caught this 6-lb., 3-oz. bowfin while visiting the Okefenokee Swamp from Canada with his family. Their family fished with Capt. Bert Deener for two days, and this was their biggest bowfin.

Wow! What a difference a week can make… again! This warm up has gotten the fish fired up all over the place. The smaller ponds and shallow systems have really fired off, and saltwater is just a little behind. Fishing should be great this weekend wherever you want to fish.

Altamaha River: Seth Carter and a buddy had a day to remember on Wednesday. They fished the lower river and caught around 30 bass up to 3 1/2 pounds. Seth said it was one of those days that it probably didn’t matter what you threw—they were just munching! They fooled them with crankbaits, worms, spinnerbaits and jigs. He also caught his biggest chain pickerel ever during the trip.

Satilla River:  Bill Stewart and I fished on Friday in the lower river and had a great day. We started by putting 1/16-oz. Mirage Jigs tipped with minnows down deep. We caught a few nice warmouth and a big bluegill, but it was slow. As we worked along the bank, I switched to a chartreuse back pearl 2-inch Keitech rigged on a chartreuse 1/16-oz. Flashy Jighead (No. 1 Gamakatsu hook) and started casting. It wasn’t long before I knew that’s what we should be doing. We started picking up quite a few crappie up to 14 inches with that rig, and Bill switched over shortly after I had a few specks in the boat. We had one giant warmouth on a Tennessee shad Specktacular Jig, but everything else came on the Keitech/Flashy Jighead setup. We ended up catching 33 fish total (mostly crappie) and released all but a handful for Bill’s supper. A couple friends fished the middle river on Thursday and couldn’t find the specks, but they caught several bowfin, a pickerel and a bass.

Savannah River: Mark Vick and Thomas Carroll fished the river on Friday at the beginning of the warm-up and put it on the crappie and fliers. They fished Tennessee shad Specktacular Jigs and Mirage Jigs but did not have to tip them with minnows. They ended up catching 52 fish total (kept 26). The water temperature was still 51 degrees, and they had to fish deep (12 to 16 feet deep) and around cover.

St. Marys River:  Randy Hanson sent me a photo of a really nice striper that looked like it weighed about 8 or 9 pounds. He caught it this week in the lower St Marys. I also had a report of an angler in the middle river catching 17 crappie on Wednesday. He fooled them with minnows. 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: Rob, Chelsey, Owen and Evan came down from Canada to see the Okefenokee Swamp and fished with me two afternoons on the west side this weekend. The boys had a blast seeing all the wildlife, and all of them enjoyed pulling on lots of bowfin. We tried bottom fishing with jigs like we had been catching fish, but that simply did not work. Trolling Dura-Spins was the ticket to trigger bites, and we caught 26 fish the first afternoon and 19 fish the second afternoon. The best colors were white-white blade and crawfish-brass blade. Owen had the biggest bowfin at 6-lbs., 3-ozs. (his biggest fish ever), and the boys caught fish that earned them youth angler awards for bowfin, flier and yellow bullhead. They caught a few fliers on sallies and super-sallies in the boat basin when not out on my boat.

Brentz McGhin trolled minnow plugs on the east side this weekend and caught a handful of bowfin and a couple jackfish. Rusty Foshee fished with me on Thursday evening for two hours on the east side of the swamp, and we pitched sallies for fliers. We caught 76 fliers during the trip, and the two best colors were pink and chartreuse. We caught eight or 10 on black gnat, but the other two were by far the best colors. We tried other colors, but they did not produce bites. Our biggest flier was 8 1/2 inches, and we had a dozen fish over 7 inches. Rusty kept eight for a meal, and we released the rest. This warm-up should have the fish chewing right up until the next cold front. The most recent water level (Folkston side) was 120.98 feet.

Dodge County Public Fishing Area: Ken Burke fished Saturday for about five hours and had four bass that weighed just shy of 14 pounds. His biggest was a 6 1/4 pounder, and he had two others over 3 pounds. He fooled them with a Frittside crankbait. The water temperature rose to over 56 degrees that day. He returned Monday and had a fantastic day. He used the same crankbait and fooled 12 bass that weighed about 36 pounds total. His big fish that day was 6 1/2 pounds, and he had several others over 3 pounds. The water temperature rose to 58 degrees that trip.

Paradise Public Fishing Area: A couple of anglers fished the area over the weekend and reported catching three bass up to 3 1/2 pounds on Lake Patrick by throwing plastic worms and Rat-L-traps.

Local Ponds: Jimmy Zinker has been catching some solid bass in Worth County farm ponds, but the topwater bite has been dead for him. Bigger Shad Raps have produced the best, and he had an 8-lb., 4-oz. behemoth inhale it on Monday. That was the biggest bass I heard about.

Joshua Barber fished a pond Saturday and had four bass that ate stick worms. He also lost a big one on a topwater frog.

I talked with a couple guys who fished live bait in a south Georgia lake targeting big bass, and they only caught a single 5-pounder on Sunday.

I heard a couple of good reports from a Brunswick pond over the weekend. An angler fishing Saturday caught 15 bass up to just over 5 pounds. He returned in a couple days and had almost 20 bass, and had one that weighed 7-lbs., 11-ozs. I’m not sure what lures he was using.

Lake Miccosukee, Fla.: Shane and Joshua Barber fished the lake early this week and caught some bass but worked hard for them. They fooled 10 bass up to 2 1/2 pounds in 2 days. The catch of the trip was Joshua’s 1-lb., 6-oz. slab crappie that inhaled a wacky-rigged stick worm.

Lochloosa Lake, Fla.: Rickey and Chris O’Berry and their family put it on the crappie on Lochloosa this week. They had good catches all weekend and had a limit their last day. Chris said that his cracklehead Zombi Eye jig head kept the big girls pinned. They threw several plastic styles and colors on the jig head.

St. John’s River (Astor, Florida) / Crescent Lake: Jamie Hodge pre-fished for an upcoming tournament in Astor and fooled some giant slabs on Tennessee shad Specktacular Jigs. He had one on Thursday morning that weighed 2 1/2 pounds (he released her after a photo). BJ Hilton fished with some friends in Astor on Thursday and sent photos of big slabs they caught with chartreuse Keitechs and Zombi Eye jig heads. The big slabs are moving shallow! 

Saltwater (Georgia Coast): Capt. Duane Harris fished with a friend on Tuesday in the Brunswick area, and they caught three redfish, two black drum and a 17-inch trout in a few hours. Plastic curly tails and Keitech swimbaits worked best for them. They had a 26 1/4-inch redfish on the smallest rig in the boat (crappie tackle), and it ate a chartreuse back pearl 3-inch Keitech rigged on a 1/16-oz. Flashy Jighead. That redfish was tagged, and they reported the tag number and released the fish.

A charter captain had some great trips this week. On Tuesday, he had Jim and Lloyd on the boat and got a limit of trout and limits of redfish on Four-Seven lures and live shrimp under Harper Super Striker Floats. Jim is 80 but fished like he was 20!

On Wednesday, Bob and Bobby got on a good trout bite. They caught a limit of keepers and about the same number of shorts using Four-Seven grubs. They caught three redfish and a nice sheepshead during their trip. Don and Debbie started off Thursday casting plastics and picked up 15 trout, but only three were keepers. They switched strategy and chased reds, and they found them. They caught their limit and left them biting. They caught their trout on Four-Seven grubs and reds on paddletail swimbaits. They also picked up a nice black drum and four flounder, as well. The intimidator color was the best for the reds and the provoker color was best for trout this week.

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.

River gages on Feb. 6 were:
Clyo on the Savannah River – 7.4 feet and falling
Abbeville on the Ocmulgee – 5.9 feet and rising
Doctortown on the Altamaha – 8.6 feet and rising
Waycross on the Satilla – 11.1 feet and falling
Atkinson on the Satilla – 9.6 feet and rising
Statenville on the Alapaha – 6.4 feet and falling
Macclenny on the St Marys – 5.5 feet and falling
Fargo on the Suwannee – 5.7 feet and falling

Full Moon is Feb. 12th.

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].