September 18, 2025 Fishing Report By Capt. Bert Deener The fall bite is breaking wide open in most places – saltwater and freshwater. Even the rivers are picking up right now as they drop out. Take your pick this weekend. River gages on September 18th were: Clyo on the Savannah River – 6.2 feet and rising Abbeville on the Ocmulgee – 1.8 feet and falling Doctortown on the Altamaha – 5.0 feet and falling Waycross on the Satilla – 5.4 feet and falling Atkinson on the Satilla – 5.4 feet and falling Statenville on the Alapaha – 3.3 feet and falling Macclenny on the St Marys – 2.7 feet and falling Fargo on the Suwannee – 3.9 feet and falling Alapaha River – Stan Rhodes and David McGlamry fished the middle Alapaha River on Sunday and had a good catch of panfish. They had crappie, bluegills, redbreasts, crappie, and catfish. The crappie were the most impressive at 1.82, 1.35 and 1.17 pounds apiece. Those are slabs! They caught their fish on crawfish and chartreuse bruiser Satilla Spins, minnows, and crickets. Altamaha/Ocmulgee Rivers – Miles Zachary has been catching bass in both rivers. The bass are still in the current, and he has been catching them on 1/4-oz. BDD buzzbaits, crankbaits, and green pumpkin Trick Worms (Texas-rigged). He said that the water is dropping and clearing up well, especially in the Ocmulgee. Most of the bass have been on the small side, but I did hear about a 5-fish limit that weighed in the upper teens this past weekend. Satilla River – Silas Harris had the biggest bass I heard of this week from the Satilla. It looked to be between 6 and 7 pounds from the photo. He caught the big one and others by pitching a dark colored baby brush hog to current breaks. He was using heavy line and big, strong hooks to get them out of the cover. St Marys River – Matt Rouse and his grandson (Noah) walked the bank of the upper St. Marys on Friday and caught panfish (stumpknocker, warmouth, and bluegill), pickerel, catfish, and bowfin. The biggest bowfin was 6.8 pounds. Noah caught panfish by flinging a curly-tail grub under a float, while Matt fished live bait. Okefenokee Swamp – Bill Stewart fished with me Friday on the east side, and we did a lot of running around checking spots for my guide trip the next day. We connected with a couple of really big bowfin (7-lb., 8-oz. and 8-lb., 9-oz). One ate a Dura-Spin while casting and the other while trolling. Lemon-lime was the color for both big fish. We had a total of 36 fish, including an 18-inch pickerel and a big flier (the rest were bowfin). The best color Dura-Spins were lemon-lime, crawfish-brass blade, and fire tiger-chartreuse blade. I was able to fool a few bowfin with a bladed fly (jackfish and electric chicken colors), as well. Brian Berry came down on vacation from Kentucky and fished with me Saturday on the east side. He ended up catching 17 fish during the trip and added 4 new species (bowfin, pickerel, flier, and Florida gar) to his catch list. The fish were finicky that day early in the trip, but we got on a good area of about 100 yards where we caught most of the fish by casting jackfish Dura-Spins. We also caught fish on lemon-lime Dura-Spins and a couple fish on a prototype lure. The most recent water level on the Folkston side was 120.95 feet. Dodge County Public Fishing Area (near Eastman) – Ken Burke fished the lake on Thursday morning for about 4 1/2 hours. He caught 7 bass that weighed a total of 13 1/2 pounds. His biggest were 3.5, 2.75, and 2.5 pounds. The water surface temperature in the middle of the day was 84 degrees. Local Ponds – Jimmy Zinker and Joshua Barber fished a pond on a very windy day and worked hard for their fish. They each caught one bass. Jimmy fished a Worth County pond Tuesday night and fooled them with Jitterbugs and buzzbaits. He’s had some good fish this week, but nothing over 6 pounds. His daytime fish have been eating walking baits, and nighttime fish have been chewing Jitterbugs and buzzbaits. Chad Lee healed from last week’s yellow jacket attack and went fishing this weekend. He caught 5 bass on Saturday by flinging spinnerbaits and stick worms. The biggest he landed was 3 pounds, but he had one jump off that he estimated was around 5 pounds. Saltwater (Georgia Coast) – The winds were bad over the weekend but layed down to fishable levels around the middle of this week. Brian Berry fished with me in the Brunswick area on Wednesday and we whacked the redfish. We fished the creek mouths around low tide and put live shrimp on the bottom with 3/16-oz. Redfish Wrecker Jigheads and 1/8-oz. Shrimp Hooks for our fish. Brian caught his first redfish, black drum, sheepshead, and a couple smaller species during the trip. We ended up catching 21 redfish up to 29 inches (kept 6 and tagged and released 15). Black drum up to 16 inches and sheepshead up to 15 inches were mixed in with them. Capt. Duane Harris fished with Tom Pollihan and Rick Murphy on Saturday in the Brunswick area, and they caught a t