Southeast Georgia Fishing Reports With Capt. Bert Deener – July 18, 2024

Michael Harrison caught this doormat flounder while casting a white Gulp swimming mullet this week with Capt. Tim Cutting.

Wow, what an exciting week of ICAST 2024 in Orlando! The fishing industry came together to do business, and I was blessed to be able to participate. For videos covering the New Product Showcase and products from the show floor, look for updates here at GON.com, or check out my Facebook page or YouTube channel (both are Bert’s Jigs and Things).

Altamaha River: Two-Way Sportfishing Club is hosting a catfish tournament on September 21-22. It will be a rod and reel only tournament. For details, contact tournament directors Jamie Hodge (912.271.8589) or Tiff Thompson (229.938.4789).

Ogeechee River: Dan Clary had a great bite on the lower Ogeechee River. He caught 11 redbreasts and bluegills. Half ate watermelon haze Satilla Spins and half ate crickets fished under a float. The bite shut down as the heat intensified.

Satilla River: The river has been up and down the last couple weeks, and I haven’t gotten reports. The Highway 84 (Blackshear Bridge) ramp is closed for bridge construction (and will be for years…..literally).

Okefenokee Swamp: The warmouth bite has remained great. Scott Blackshear fished with me Saturday morning and caught 42 fish total. He caught four warmouth right off the bat on a chartreuse Bert’s Bug with a fly rod and then switched to pitching a whitetreuse Warmouth Whacker Jig to catch another couple dozen warmouth (27 total). For the last hour of his trip he wanted to try for bowfin and pickerel, so we trolled Dura-Spins and caught 15 of them. The biggest bowfin was a 5-pounder, and the best colors were lemon-lime and crawfish-brass blade. Other anglers pitching crickets caught warmouth in the canal while we were idling past, so the bite was on for about anything you wanted to throw at them. An angler fishing the east side Thursday reported catching some nice bowfin and pickerel on fire tiger Dura-Spins. Joshua Barber fished the upper swamp tributaries Saturday and caught a half-dozen warmouth, 25 fliers, 14 catfish and a few bowfin and pickerel. He caught some of them on bugs, but had a giant warmouth wrap him up and break it off. The most recent water level (Folkston side) was 120.78 feet.

Local Ponds – The best report I had this week was a guy who fished his favorite catfish pond (in Brunswick) from the bank. He caught 38 channel catfish on shrimp in only 45 minutes of fishing. Shane and Joshua Barber and a friend fished a pond mid-week and had 8 bass between the 2 boats. The fish ate buzztail shads and frogs fished over vegetation. Their biggest was 2 1/2 pounds.

Saltwater (GA Coast) – Todd Kennedy has been fishing the Brunswick area this week and catching a bunch of oversized redfish and solid sheepshead and a few black drum on fiddler crabs fished around docks. Steve and Brenda Hampton fished the Jekyll Pier over the weekend, and Brenda hammered a nice 18-inch flounder on a mudminnow. They saw a 22 1/2-inch flounder and 24-inch trout caught from the pier that day. Capt. Greg Hildreth (georgiacharterfishing.com) has found a few tarpon scattered around and all the sharks you could want to catch. The whiting bite has been decent this week. Capt. Tim Cutting (fishthegeorgiacoast.com) has been doing well for trout, redfish and flounder this week. Redfish of all sizes (good to see a strong crop of young-of-the-year 9 to 11-inchers) have been biting. Most of the trout have been in the 18 to 22-inch range – mostly in the 7 to 10 foot depths. Flounder have been biting along rip-rap, older docks, and artificial reefs in 8 to 12 feet. The 3.8 to 4 1/2-inch swimbaits and live shrimp have been producing most of his trout. Live shrimp and 3-inch Gulp shrimp (natural and molting colors were best) worked for reds, while 4-inch Gulp swimming mullet and Gulp grubs have been fooling flounder. Any color will work for flatties, as long as it is white…. 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 to 10 a.m. and 2 to 5 p.m. 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 July 21. 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 July 18 were:
Clyo on the Savannah River – 6.5 feet and rising
Abbeville on the Ocmulgee – 1.3 feet and rising
Doctortown on the Altamaha – 5.4 feet and falling
Waycross on the Satilla – 8.8 feet and falling
Atkinson on the Satilla – 5.4 feet and rising  |
Statenville on the Alapaha – 5.7 feet and rising
Macclenny on the St Marys – 4.0 feet and falling
Fargo on the Suwannee – 5.1 feet and rising

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 ([email protected]).