Posts by Capt. Bert Deener
Crooked River State Park: Southeast Georgia’s Award-winning Destination
Earlier in the year, Crooked River State Park in extreme southeast Georgia won the “Most Outstanding Park Operations” award for a combination of being run efficiently, as well as having outstanding interpretive programs and facilities. With such an awesome assortment of parks and historic sites across our great state, that is quite an honor. A…
Read MoreCrooked River’s Reds and Trout
If ever you wanted to learn how to fool a seatrout or redfish with a hunk of plastic or other man-made substance, fall is the time to do it. Hoards of hungry fish are prowling our marshes, fattening up on crustaceans and baitfish in anticipation of the coming winter. Capt. Andy Gowen, of St. Marys,…
Read MoreCatch Your Own Seafood Platter
If you have a boat and some basic fishing knowledge, there is no need to pay big prices for a captain’s platter at a seafood restaurant. After a long growing season, the sea’s bounty is ripe for the picking during fall, with Georgia’s mile after square mile of productive marsh pumping out a smorgasbord. While…
Read MoreParadise PFA Truly Is A Fishing Paradise
Paradise Public Fishing Area (PFA) near Tifton is a cornucopia for anglers. Boasting more than 60 lakes and ponds that range in size from 1/4 to 112 acres spread across the sprawling 1,341-acre tract, you can find just about any warm-water angling experience you want. By the same token, anglers’ eyes bug out the first…
Read MoreDo-It-Yourself Beach Fishing On This Vacation
I have had many phone calls from “land-locked” friends headed to the Georgia beaches with their families on their week-long, once-a-year pilgrimage. It usually starts something like this, “Hi, Bert. I’m headed to the beach with my family next week. What’s biting? Which of my bass rods do I need to bring?” The discussion centers…
Read MoreWinter Inshore Fishing Along Georgia’s Coast
The sun was peaking above the trees, just beginning to warm the crisp morning air as the Mercury outboard roared to life. The outgoing tide was coursing through the oyster shell mounds and over mud flats on its way to the ocean. Sand gnats were non-existent due to previous freezes and the cool morning. As…
Read MoreRedfish-Trout Tourney Raises $65,000 For Cystic Fibrosis
The 10th annual Rich Products Corp. Golden Isles Red-Trout Celebrity Classic held Oct. 7-8 out of the Morningstar Marina on St. Simons Island was a huge success at raising much-needed funds for cystic fibrosis research. More than $65,000 was raised during the weekend’s event. During the tournament, contestants are paired with guides for two days…
Read More100-Pounds Of Bass On The Mighty Altamaha River
Reports of improving bass catches on the Altamaha River have been frequent over the last year. The big, often muddy river perennially provides tournament catch rates that are in the top couple bodies of water in the state. Higher-than-usual summer water levels the last couple years have provided the right combination of food availability and…
Read MoreThe 10-pound Tour Stop 3: Lake Varner
Few lakes in Georgia drew as much attention from trophy-bass hunters in the late 1990s as Lake Varner. The reason was very simple — the place was routinely producing huge fish, including the lake record at 15-lbs., 13-ozs. A decade later, it remains one of the premier destinations in the state if you want…
Read MoreThe 10-Pound Bass Tour: Second Stop, Ocmulgee PFA
Ocmulgee Public Fishing Area (PFA) near Hawkinsville is a lake you are going to hear a lot about over the next decade, if you have not already. It already has a fantastic crappie population, with some huge slabs caught each year, but the bass are just starting to raise eyebrows. My article last month about…
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