Southeast Georgia Fishing Reports With Capt. Bert Deener – March 28, 2025

Bill Stewart caught this chunky warmouth on the east side of the Okefenokee Swamp on Tuesday by pitching a chartreuse back pearl Keitech swimbait on a Zombi Eye jig head.

The reports were as varied as the weather this week. The best reports came from ponds and the Okefenokee Swamp. Saltwater was hit-and-miss. The southeast Georgia rivers are still high but are falling now that the leaves have budded out and the trees are pulling more water.

St. Marys River: The Temple Landing is currently closed while the WRD 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: Mike and Matt Rouse fished the east side of the Okefenokee on Saturday in the cool, super-windy weather and still caught fish. They had a few warmouth and fliers on black sparkle/chartreuse Warmouth Whacker Jigs. They also caught a couple bowfin by flinging crawfish-brass blade Dura-Spins.

Bill Stewart fished with me Tuesday on the east side. We ended up catching and releasing a total of 22 fish (three pickerel, three fliers and 16 warmouth). We had one of the pickerel on a copperfield Wobble Blade, but the rest were on a crawfish or popsicle Warmouth Whacker Jig or Keitech 2-inch chartreuse back pearl swimbait on a Zombi Eye jig head. Another angler, Steve, was fishing that day and caught and released 20 warmouth. He used chartreuse curly tailed grubs. Another angler kept 15 warmouth that day.

Buck Johnson fished Wednesday and had 31 warmouth by pitching chartreuse pearl artificials on Zombi Eye jig head to shoreline cover. The water is high, but fish are biting. The most recent water level on the Folkston side was 121.34 feet.

Lake Blackshear: I got a report of the crappie biting well. One angler reported catching a good mess of fish that included a 2.66-lb. slab. He was pitching around cypress trees.

Lake Eufaula: Sammy Gaskins, of Waycross, and a buddy made the trek west to crappie fish this week. They brought home 109 crappie in three days of fishing. Sammy usually only uses artificial lures, but I didn’t ask him what he caught them on.

Clarks Hill: Jamie Hodge traveled up to the big lake to chase crappie this week. On Thursday, he had a good catch of slabs, including a 2.82-pounder. He was longlining them with plastics.

Dodge County Public Fishing Area: The bite slowed this week, according to Ken Burke’s trip on Tuesday. He fished 5 1/2 hours and only had one bite. He caught the 1-lb., 13-oz. bass with a squarebill crankbait, but that’s all he could muster. He said that he didn’t see anglers fishing for crappie do much of anything either.

Paradise Public Fishing Area: Seth Carter tried out a new spinnerbait design he’s working on at the area this week and fooled a handful of keeper bass on the white version. The bigger ones were a few pounds apiece.

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 14 tags returned.

Local Ponds: Chad Lee and Daniel Johnson fished an Alma-area pond over the weekend and caught 20 nice crappie and about a dozen bass up to 2 pounds. Christy Craws fooled the bass, and Assassin plastics produced the crappie.

Chip Lafferty fished a Brunswick area pond this weekend and fooled a dozen bass up to 4 1/2 pounds. I didn’t ask what he caught them on, but he’s been fooling them on junebug stick worms in the shallows.

Jimmy Zinker is fired up that the topwater bite is finally working. He fooled several this week on Squeaker Trophy Bass Buzzbaits and one on a Musky Jitterbug. His fish were up to 4 pounds (he had several that size), but those are much smaller than his double-digit goal. He will be fishing into the dark some beginning this week.

Joshua Barber fished a Manor-area pond on Saturday and caught a half-dozen bass. His biggest five weighed about 13 pounds. He caught them on Texas-rigged stick worms and plastic craws.

Saltwater (Georgia Coast): Teddy Elrod fished a couple of hours after work in the Brunswick area on Friday evening and got on both trout and redfish. He ended up catching 10 reds (four oversized up to 27 inches) and nine trout. He released them all. He had one fish on topwater, and it jumped like a bass. All of the others were on Keitech swimbaits.

Brentz McGhin and Joseph Mitchell fished the Brunswick area on Saturday and whacked the whiting. They caught 91 by fishing dead shrimp on the bottom.

Capt. Duane Harris took his cousins Tom and Kelly Pollihan in the Brunswick area on Monday. They had a great time with live shrimp, catching a dozen redfish and a trout in two hours of fishing.

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.

St. John’s River (Astor, Florida)/Crescent Lake: It’s been a couple weeks since I got a good report from down south, but I did this week. Anglers reported longline trolling in Crescent Lake and catching some really nice postspawn crappie.

Keaton Beach, Florida: Lots of fresh water has pushed black water all the way south of Keaton, but it has stabilized enough now that the fish are more used to it than they have been a week or two ago. Folks are catching trout limits in a few hours by fishing shrimp under Back Bay Thunder Floats. They caught a few on artificials, but the lack of bait so far this spring has the plug bite slower than usual. A search around the outer edges of the big slug of fresh water found some willing keeper-sized trout on another trip this week. Again, bait was best, but artificials picked up a few. From most reports, plastics have been catching fish better than plugs. The warmer forecasted weather should get the flats fish biting this week.

River gages on March 27 were:
Clyo on the Savannah River – 6.3 feet and falling
Abbeville on the Ocmulgee – 6.7 feet and falling
Doctortown on the Altamaha – 10.0 feet and rising
Waycross on the Satilla – 11.7 feet and falling
Atkinson on the Satilla – 11.7 feet and falling
Statenville on the Alapaha – 9.6 feet and falling
Macclenny on the St. Marys – 7.3 feet and falling
Fargo on the Suwannee – 11.9 feet and falling

New Moon is March 29.

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].