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Okefenokee Swamp
The Okefenokee is a shallow, 438,000-acre swamp along the Georgia–Florida line that offers a unique fishing experience in the largest blackwater swamp in the United States. The mystical black water of the swamp harbors excellent populations of chain pickerel, bowfin, flier, warmouth and bullhead catfish. Much of the Okefenokee, 402,000 acres, is managed as the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. The Okefenokee Swamp was named after the Choctaw phrase, "Land of the Trembling Earth." The Okefenokee was created by the natural accumulation of peat moss in a shallow basin. The St. Marys River and the Suwannee River both originate in the swamp, with the Suwannee River amounting to the flow of about 90% of the swamp's watershed southwest toward the Gulf of Mexico. The waters of the swamp's southeast corner flow out of the St. Marys River to the Atlantic Ocean.
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Based on the title of this story, I’m surprised and grateful for those who have stopped in to read it. Give me three minutes and it will come full circle… I promise. There is not a more hated and despised fish in Georgia’s waters to my knowledge than a bowfin. Ugly, nasty, slimy, are some…
“I got one!” Oh yeah, my favorite words to hear on the water. I wheeled around to see George’s rod bent over double. Seconds later, a dark fish rocketed out the water and did a 5-foot tailwalk across the top of the black glass. I was hollering, “Reel, reel, reel! Keep him tight!” I coached…
Chaos. Imagine being surrounded by a dozen different languages, all at the top of each screamer’s voice. They meld into an echoing cacophany that renders making sense of what’s going on nearly impossible. Nearly. It has taken half a lifetime to scrape together a pidgin which is workable quite possibly in my mind only. I…
In the nightmare, terror is just behind and gaining. Big, eight-ball black and much too close, the roaring mass with teeth and jaws popping and claws swiping, steadily closes the distance. There’s seemingly no escape: attempting to run—even for your life—as if in deep water is a dire, daunting, even hopeless task. The only hope…
Chain pickerel, warmouth, flier, bullhead catfish, bowfin… not exactly the who’s who of well-known sport- fish. But, in southeast Georgia, they are a unique assemblage of species, which make up the potential new lake-record list of fishes for the Okefenokee Swamp in GON’s Georgia Lake and River Records. While the various species can be caught…
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Saltwater is still on fire, and several other freshwater fisheries produced some good catching this week, as well. Pretty much all the southeast Georgia rivers are fishable again. Altamaha River: A couple of Waycross anglers fished the river on Saturday…
Read MoreOkefenokee Swamp Record Fish
| Spotted Sunfish | 5.85-ozs. | Bert Deener | 4-27-2023 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flier | 7.92-ozs. | Tim Cutting | 02/28/24 |
| Chain Pickerel | 2-lbs., 15-ozs. | Silas Kight | 03/02/24 |
| Warmouth | 15.36-ozs. | Bert Deener | 05/17/24 |
| Bluegill | 1-lb., 0.96-ozs. | Josh Forsythe | 06/14/24 |