Happy Fishing! Here this weekend's Big Bend fishing report (Jan. 24)

Did you know almost 50 million people a year in the United Sates go fishing at least once?  Over 38 million of those went freshwater fishing. Only makes sense as the majority of the states are land locked, not too mention the cost associated with saltwater fishing is a bit higher. In addition the average freshwater fishermen went 17 days.

In our neck of the woods it’s about 50/50. With so many recreational fishing areas within a 75 mile radius it’s almost like living in paradise.

Freshwater rivers that run into the Gulf of Mexico in and around the big bend area, make it easy to target fresh and saltwater fish just by running North or South. Growing up in the Midwest this is simply awesome for someone like me.

January weather is unstable at best, and that’s no secret. With this in mind we’re able to take advantage of cover these rivers have to offer from un-tolerable elements like a cold North wind. Large, majestic trees line river banks just up from the salty areas. You know when the salinity starts to change as small palms and tall grass make up most of the landscape. It’s still cover, turning even the smallest of calm into your new favorite fishing spot.

While we’re on the subject of North winds, a quick reminder to be very careful when navigating the flats as it’s a whole new ballgame. Those same places you’ve run to and from, in and out of with confidence can become death for a lower unit. If it’s the high tide you’ve gone out on you may need a back up plan depending which ramp you want to use (an early lesson I learned the hard way).

Whatever your preference, this weekend looks to be much better than the artic stuff that just left. Rain will probably be gone but the high Bluebird skies will shut the bite down just a bit. Live bait will be your friend. Those holes and calm spots we talked about will come in handy. If you don’t have any they’re not hard to find with a map or a depth finder.

Most of all be safe. Taking risks, especially when water temperatures are cooler isn’t worth it. Better to be able to fish another day than become a statistic.          

So until next week, be safe, have fun and ALWAYS wear your life jacket while boating.

Cliff “JR” Mundinger

APALACHEE BAY

Otto Hough (myhometownfishing.com) says “Tough stretch of fishing days this past weekend on into Wednesday with elevated winds capped off with freezing temperatures. The cold coupled with the strong negative early low tides had the trout, reds and sheepshead crowding into the deep holes all up and down the Wakulla, St. Marks and Aucilla rivers. Those anglers braving the elements found a goodly number of fish liking just about every live shrimp offered up in the deep holes. Chunking a suspending Mirrolure Heavy Dine or a Paul Brown Fatboy into those same holes was being rewarded handsomely as well. No real reason not to expect the same type of weekend action on the backside of the Friday full moon. Plus, it's going to be warmer. So, for all the weekend anglers, it certainly does appear that the Fat Mouthed Gods of Fishing will finally be kind as winds should be significantly lower Saturday out of the northwest, becoming even lighter out of the north by Sunday. Negative low tides over the weekend will be drawn down even further with that northerly breeze. Without much doubt, those deep holes ought to be teeming with lots of hungry fish early on as the only places with a decent amount of warmer waters will be the deep river holes and oyster bar cuts.

"For the weekend ahead, the trusty live shrimp is always a well liked wintertime favorite as live bait sources are hard to come by this time of year for the fish. Just put that frisky shrimp on a Carolina rig with a 3/0 circle hook or on a 1/4 to 3/8 ounce jig head with a 2/0 or 3/0 hook. Fire that offering of live bait into a deep hole. It will stand little, if any chance of surviving unscathed for too long as the trout, reds and sheepshead should be ready to dine. Working those slow sinking MR Series Mirrolures along with tossing the deeper suspending lures like the Mirrolure Heavy Dines will elicit the attention of trout. The 808 color scheme in the Mirrolures has been garnering a goodly amount of attention. This time of year, the Paul Brown Fat Boy tends to become a top producing offering that catches many a fine gator trout. Working down in the water column with soft five inch jerk shads like the Saltwater Assassin, Gulp! and Z-Man on a 1/8th ounce weighted 4/0 worm hook will snooker lots of river trout when twitched back ever so slowly on the retrieve. As for the secret to catching those fine dining sheepshead, I've begun using 1/4 ounce circle jig heads, buried in a live shrimp with an extremely small piece of Fish Bite on the hook just past the barb. Most of the time, these bait bandits will do a decent job, though definitely not a hundred percent of the time of hooking themselves. Lately, some really find 3 to 5 pounders have been hanging in some of the rockier deep holes. Granted, when rocks are around those fish seemingly have a knack for hanging up occasionally when they make their runs if not pulled off the rocks quickly. And if the river(s) don't have a big crowd in the main body of water, slow trolling a gold/orange bellied Bomber Long A, Redfin or Bite-a-Bait is still a go-to approach to locate the spots holding reds and/or trout in deeper water.

"Fortunately, with winds in the weekend forecast not predicted to approach anywhere near the velocities experienced at the first of the week, boating will be much easier, safer and enjoyable. However, that being said, the need for those PFDs is still there. Make it easy, wear an auto-inflatable. Easy to wear, while being comfortable as well as being a life insurance policy of sorts on the water.  Boat wisely, safely and just FISH!"

KEATON BEACH

Captain Pat McGriff ((www.onemorecast.net, onemorecast@gtcom.net (850)838-7541) reports “Well, last Thursday Billy Pillow and II  fished in 74-45 degree water and caught a limit of trout in just under 42 minutes. We caught the majority of our trout on the Paul Brown Devil and had one trout on the Golden shiner Magnum Lazer Minnow plug.

"I caught one on a live shrimp under a Back Bay Thunder ( just to prove they would eat one) Turns out that trout 17’ was our smallest as we had 9 over 18” long including a 21” trout for top honors. Friday the water temps dropped in the Gulf to 67 degrees and the trout were just not  very happy with it as it took just two hours to get 8 trout then four more to find two more in 18 –20 knot w-i-n-d  that pretty much closed out all the water north of Yates. We did however have a banner day on a brand NEW sinking hard swim bait from L&S ( MirrOlure)

"Saturday morning we went out to fish the Gulf had dropped to 59 degrees. Despite I had seen how far the water had dropped the afternoon before; I made the mistake of going back to 2 – 2.5 feet of water and trying to find the fish there. Where I made my mistake is, since the water had all been blown out the day before, I should have stopped in 3 – 4 feet of water; which later I found that those few who had a good day  caught their fish in that deeper water.  Oh and the water temps finally made it up to 65 degrees.

"We caught dozens of shorts but only managed six keepers. Sunday, I made the adjustment and in less than 4 hours we caught 12 keepers with four over 18”  all on live shrimp under Back Bays in 3 – 3.5 feet of water. This weekend I would expect the open Gulf to be tough...look for a creek if that floats your boat....water temps will most likely hover around 50-55 if I had to guess." 

ST GEORGE ISLAND

Captain Russ Knapp (850-653-5072) reports “Winter has returned and the water temperatures  are going to drop again.  Fish, just like humans want to be warm so look for them in the deeper spots of the rivers and the pass off the bay. Fresh shrimp on the bottom is your best bet.  Whiting can be caught in the surf off the beach by throwing dead or alive shrimp out to them on the bottom. More about boat trailers. If yours has seen better days you have two paths to follow. Either repair the old one  or buy a new  one. For salt water use an aluminum trailer is definitely the way to go.  Float On makes a great trailer with heavy duty everything so cry once and go first class. You will thank yourself for years to come. ( the local dealer is Wefings in Eastpoint 850 670 8100 ask for Ron). If its not aluminum or stainless steel it’s going to cause problems sooner or later from being used in salt water. Next week we will talk about repairing  your old trailer and remember ALWAYS rinse the salt off your trailer after every use." 

AREA RIVERS

Captain Randy Peart (captpeart@yahoo.com) adds “Still catching lots of Bass on crankbaits in the St Marks and Ochlockonee Rivers. Try a 1/4 Oz crankbait in silver with a blue back and cast it along the drop-off. Also catching some nice Reds the same way. Some decent Trout are moving up the St Marks River. Try a Chartuese Gulp on a 1/4 Oz jighead and fish it slowly along the bottom.  Also up river some nice Redbreasts are being caught in the St Marks on beetle spins and small spinners. If you’re not fishing it’s time to repack your trailer bearings and change those old trailer tires.  Remember, trailer tires need to be changed every 3 years. 

STIENHATCHEE

Captain Troy Charles (T2inshorecharters@gmail.com) says “Incoming tide!!! That’s the most common question I get asked is what tide is best to fish and my answer is it’s always different from week to week but currently it is absolutely the incoming tide. I have had some great days fishing the incoming tide in darker water bumping a 1/8 ounce Salt water assasin jig head paired with a 5 inch gulp jerk bait slowly in the sweet and sour chicken color as well as the Z man paddle tailers in the electric chicken color grabbing easy limits of slot trout in 1.5-3 foot of (darker) water. As darker water warms up faster. I have been catching redfish on the lower tides off of limestone pot holes using the live target 3 inch scaled sardine in the amber ghost color. With our recent drop in air temps and water temps I am going to change up my hunting grounds. Our trout will find a deeper Chanel, creek or holes on the flats and take refuge in the deeper water especially on lower tides. So this week I will fishing the troughs, ditches, creeks etc and when the tide rises the fish will move just off the ditches to a warmer mud flat to feed and that will be my approach. I will be bumping jigs mentioned above as well as Live target plugs and Mirrordines by mirrorlure. These fish will be slow bitting cold fish so I suggest to slow way down! On windy days use a drift sock or do like me and use 2. It will slow you down on your drift and allow the fish to see your bait of choice a few extra seconds or allow you another cast and entice a colder slower moving fish. I also recommend using some pro cure inshore bait sent to give that slow fish some extra incentive to eat or hold on to the bait a split second longer and allow a hook set. Good luck and hope this helps! As always take a kid fishing whenever you can!!! 

Kristin Skipper from SeaHag marina sent in the results of the local fundraiser tournament from January 18, 2020. This tournament was a fundraiser to help the Gainesville High School Fishing Club raise money to fix a boat that was donated to them. They would like to be able to take field trips fishing and one day have a competitive team. They had approximately 57 anglers participate in the tournament and a wonderful turn out for the raffle. They are excited for next year and have already set a date, JANUARY 16, 2020! Largest Trout $500 – Kristen Griffis 4.97lbs Largest Redfish $500 – Michael Neu 6.72lbs. Most Spots on a Redfish $200 – Connor McKinnon 3 spots.

LAKE SEMINOLE

Captain Paul Tyre (850-264-7534) (instagream@lakeseminolefishingadventures) says ”The Bass fishing last week on Lake Seminole was excellent with water temperatures in the upper 60’s due to the warm weather the Bass were pushing shallow! With the arrival of the coldest weather of the new year the Bass have moved back to their staging areas. Crank Baits and Jerkbaits have produced well this week in Spring Creek where the clearest water is. The Flint River and Chattahoochee River arms of the lake is stained and Spinnerbaits are producing well."

LAKE JACKSON

Not a whole lot of change. Lake has dropped a little and bass are biting in deeper holes. Shiners are a great choice this time of year but of course are not tournament approved.

Sunset landing is your best bet to launch any bass boat or pleasure vessel up to 21’ or so. Runs are open but still have submerged grass not far underwater. With the right kind of motor you can access most any of the lake you wish except the cattle gap area. Also be careful if you’re wanting to cut through to Crowder. There’s a couple old tree stumps that can be reached while coming off plane. There is a bass tournament being put on Saturday that goes out of Sunset landing. Weigh in is at 3:00 pm so keep that in mind if you’re planning on going hunting. Cliff “JR” Mundinger (www.fishtallahassee.com) 850-296-4071