Southeast Georgia Fishing Reports With Capt. Bert Deener – Jan. 10, 2025

Van Palmer caught this nice warmouth on the lower Satilla Sunday afternoon while fishing with Capt. Bert Deener.

Cold (and windy for most of it)—that pretty much sums up the week. Even so, some folks caught fish. With the sustained cold for the weekend, expect the fish to be dormant in deep water. If you figure out where they are, it can be awesome!

Satilla River:  Van Palmer fished with me for a couple of hours after church on Sunday on the lower river, and we caught 21 fish total. A half-dozen of them were bowfin up to 4-lbs., 11-ozs., but the vast majority were warmouth—some of them BIG. We had a crappie and stumpknocker mixed in, as well. Van caught his fish on a watermelon-colored Silverback Jigs Micro Jig, and I caught mine on a 1/16-oz. Mirage Jig tipped with a minnow. The fish were in the deeper holes back in the slack water and thumped our offerings as we worked them along the bottom. The neat thing is that we caught all of our fish in a lake that I’ve never even tried before. We were scouting, and we found them!

St. Marys River: Chad Purvis fished the river on Saturday and caught some really nice bluegill. He caught 16 bluegill and a crappie.

Matt Rouse fished the upper St. Marys on Monday from the bank and caught a few panfish (mostly stumpknockers). He fooled them with white curly tail grubs. He said the level is low enough that it’s hard to get around in a boat.

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: The number of folks fishing the east side of the swamp this week went to zero, according to Okefenokee Adventures staff. The most recent water level (Folkston side) was 120.78 feet.

Dodge County Public Fishing Area (near Eastman): The bite slowed significantly with the cold this week. Ken Burke only caught one bass in about four hours of fishing on Wednesday.

Local Ponds: Jimmy Zinker fished a Valdosta area pond this week. He was tuning some of his favorite buzzbaits and caught a 4-lb. bass. That was a bonus, as he was just playing. Bass hit topwater in winter, but the bite is usually slower than in warm weather. I heard of a few folks doing well on crappie, but no details.

St. John’s River (Astor, Florida) / Crescent Lake: Jase, Mike and Jim fished Crescent Lake late in the week after the cold front and did well on crappie. They fooled 43 nice fish up to about 2 pounds. All of them ate artificials, and they were offshore a bit. Jase had a blast fighting a 9-lb. bowfin.

Slab crappie are chewing in the Astor area. Jamie Hodge and friends whacked big fish early in the week, then fished a couple days into the new year before heading home. The bite slowed for them after the strong cold front, but they still caught some slabs. Instead of catching a limit each day, they were catching a dozen or so each day.

Saltwater (Georgia Coast): A friend took his daughter to the Brunswick area on Sunday and had to work for them. It was 39 degrees when they left—very cold for our coast! They managed a couple of redfish, a keeper trout and a few short trout but did not get on a big school (or at least not a school that would bite).

Dane Clements and Danny Stone fished the Brunswick area on Friday and spanked the sheepshead on fiddler crabs. They caught 44 sheepshead and kept a limit in shallow water. It was 28 degrees when they pushed off, and slack tide was their best bite. Redfish were off and on. A couple friends got on them well and a couple didn’t do much of anything. It’s all about finding the school in the winter.

A local charter captain said that the stars aligned for a great bite this week. Monday was the warmest day and was an outstanding bite. They had about 70 trout with half of them keepers. In the cold on Tuesday, the bite was about half as good. Wednesday was cold—he had a layer of frost covering his boat in the morning! But, the fish bit well without his folks having to deal with wind to make a good presentation. They had two limits of trout keepers and about 20 shorts. They had a good red and flounder that day, as well. Thursday was cold AND windy again, but his anglers fished hard and managed 27 keeper trout and about 20 short fish. Most of the fish came on provoker or Christmas tree-colored Four-Seven grubs on a rootbeer crackle Zombi Eye jig head (the spring keeper version).

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.

Full Moon is Jan. 13.

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/.

River gages on Jan. 9 were:
Clyo on the Savannah River – 5.1 feet and rising
Abbeville on the Ocmulgee – 4.8 feet and rising
Doctortown on the Altamaha – 8.7 feet and falling
Waycross on the Satilla – 10.9 feet and falling
Atkinson on the Satilla – 7.7 feet and rising
Statenville on the Alapaha – 5.3 feet and falling
Macclenny on the St Marys – 2.7 feet and falling
Fargo on the Suwannee – 3.3 feet and falling

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].