Southeast Georgia Fishing Reports With Capt. Bert Deener – March 21, 2025

Casey and Chad caught this almost 19-inch pickerel on a crawfish-brass blade Dura-Spin while fishing the Okefenokee on their anniversary Monday.

Freshwater is heating up in the flat waters. Rivers are still mostly high, but some stretches and backwaters will be fishable soon. The Okefenokee is high, but the bite has still been good. Very few people fished the brine with the strong winds and bigger tides earlier in the weekend.

Savannah River: Mark Vick fished the river oxbows on Friday and did well for crappie. He managed 23 slabs but had to search for them. They had moved super-shallow (he guessed they were spawning). Something that caught his attention is that the crappie were slamming minnows on the surface regularly. They were really active that day. He caught all of his fish on a chartreuse Specktacular Jig.

Satilla River: Will Gibson and Coby Eunice fished limblines in the middle Satilla over the weekend and caught three flathead catfish. The biggest was 47 pounds, and it ate a big panfish they put out for bait. Will caught his first flathead ever during the trip. What a monster for his first one!

Will Gibson (left) and Coby Eunice caught these big flatheads on limblines in the middle Satilla River over the weekend. The biggest was 47 pounds.

St. Marys River: The Temple Landing is currently closed while the GA Wildlife Resources Division boat ramp crew rebuilds the ramp. The ramp itself is complete, and the crew is working to improve the parking area. The project is winding down, and it should reopen in early April if weather and river levels cooperate (which they are currently not doing).

Okefenokee Swamp: Chad and Casey fished with me Monday to celebrate their anniversary. Before they got there, I pitched a crawfish-colored Warmouth Whacker Jig for a few minutes and caught and released a nice 9-inch warmouth. Chad had the hot hand at first, catching a pickerel and an Angler Award-sized flier. He caught the flier with a prototype in-line spinner and the pickerel on a whitetreuse Warmouth Whacker Jig. We ran around lots of places on the east side and saw some neat stuff, like LOTS of gators, pitcher plants, golden club blooming and several swallowtail kites that circled noisily around us as we fished.  Late in the trip Casey was on fire by casting a crawfish—brass blade Dura-Spin. She caught an 18 1/2-inch pickerel and a 7-lb., 12-oz. bowfin on the lure, and they had a few other fish, as well. They ended up catching eight fish total in the HOWLING wind. Buck Johnson pitched to shoreline cover on Friday and did well for warmouth on the east side. He stopped after catching 30 of them on a chartreuse/pearl artificial on a Zombi Eye jig head. The most recent water level on the Folkston side was 121.42 feet.

Dodge County Public Fishing Area (near Eastman): The crappie are still shallow based on staff spring sampling conducted this week. The numbers of bass and crappie in the samples were strong.   

Ocmulgee Public Fishing Area (near Hawkinsville): Dave fished the lake this week and did well for bass. He used live bait from the bank and caught five bass that weighed a total of 32-lbs. A 7.4-pounder was his biggest. Remember, the bass fishing on that lake is catch-and-release only.

Paradise Public Fishing Area (near Tifton): The Wildlife Resources Division is conducting a bass study for the next 10 months on the area. They have tagged 430 bass in 10 of the bigger and more popular lakes (Patrick, Paradise, Bobben, Beaver, Russell, Horseshoe 2, 3, 4 and 5 and Tacklebuster). If you catch a tagged bass, clip the tag and return it along with the information requested on a tag return form (available on the porch at the area office). Each person returning a tag will receive a custom-embroidered ball cap and be entered into a drawing for a Yeti cooler. Each angler will only receive one cap, but there is no limit to the number of times you can be entered into the drawing. The Waycross Office has already had eight tags returned. One of the bass was just under 9 pounds.

Local Ponds: Jimmy Zinker caught the biggest bass I heard of this week—a 7-lb., 1-oz. hawg—by throwing a Trophy Bass Buzzbait in the Squeaker version. It’s a black, flat-bladed buzzbait designed by legendary big bass expert Pat Cullen. Jimmy loves topwater fishing and is figuring out the nuances of the big bass lure!

Lester Rowland fished an Alma area pond this weekend and had a great trip. He ended up catching over 20 crappie by fishing live minnows. He also fooled a half-dozen bass up to 2 pounds with red-shad plastic worms.

I fished with Teddy Elrod on Friday in a Brunswick area pond, and we had a stellar day for bass. We caught and released 46 bass up to 6 pounds (most were 2 to 4 pounds) and a half-dozen channel catfish. Teddy’s hot lure was a bluegill-colored spinnerbait early and then a tequila-sunrise Texas-rigged worm at the end of the day. My best lures were a 3/8-oz. Wobble Blade Spinnerbait (golden shiner and blue glimmer shad colors), a Texas-rigged Keitech Mad Wag worm in heavy cover. Our arms were sore after that bite!

Joshua Barber caught 15 bass at a south Georgia lake on Saturday. His biggest two were 4.9 and 5.7 pounds. He was rigging plastics (stick worms, swimbaits, crawfish and Speed Worms) both unweighted and weighted for his fish.

Saltwater (Georgia Coast): This was a good week to ignore the brine with the high winds and big tides, but on Friday, Tom Lanyi fished both shrimp and plastics. He had lots of small trout and slot reds and an oversized red. He also added a flounder to catch a slam. He dabbled some fiddlers and caught a bunch of short sheepshead before catching a big one (about 5 pounds).

On Monday, in the gale force gusts, Jason and Ely Folds braved the conditions and caught some good reds and trout. They had about 10 trout and 10 reds along with a kicker flounder and black drum. One of their three oversized reds had a rare pink tag worth $100. Eight-year old Ely caught it.

On Tuesday, Tom hopped back on the boat for his last trip of the winter before heading back home to Pennsylvania. He tangled with about a dozen redfish and released them all. They also hit a sheepshead hole and caught several, including a few good ones.

On Wednesday, Chad and Jason worked for their fish. But, they caught a redfish or two on each stop and ended up with 22 reds. The trout bite was slow for them.

On Thursday Randy Dorris fished only Four-Seven plastics. They had seven keepers out of 21 fish, but Randy fooled a dandy 27-inch redfish out of a treetop with a 1000 series Stradic reel and 10-lb. braided line. It was a tense battle, but Randy prevailed. The best pattern was the Four-Seven Bayou Brownie Shrimp, but the fish ate several colors.

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 March 20 were:
Clyo on the Savannah River – 9.8 feet and rising
Abbeville on the Ocmulgee – 10.8 feet and falling
Doctortown on the Altamaha – 9.5 feet and rising
Waycross on the Satilla – 13.9 feet and falling
Atkinson on the Satilla – 13.0 feet and rising
Statenville on the Alapaha – 11.7 feet and falling
Macclenny on the St Marys – 10.9 feet and falling
Fargo on the Suwannee – 12.1 feet and rising

Last quarter moon is March 22.

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].