Ham’s Okefenokee Odyssey

[Ham]

So, the seeds for this trip were planted when I failed to catch a Ruddy Bowfin during our trip to the Tamiami Trail. I had to get a Ruddy Bowfin. Okefenokee is thought to be a Great Place to get one. I started to study up and plot and plan.

well, I asked around and the people that I thought would be interested in joining me all said No, so it became a solo quest. 
 

It’s a LONG Darn way over there. I was planning to fish the East side staying at a campground near Folkston, GA. But within reason, it only made sense to fish along the way. So, The plan was to fish the first afternoon of the trip near Birmingham, AL and stay with Family in the area. Fish the morning of Day 2 and drive on to Georgia. Fish a spot or two on Day 2 and set up Camp. Day 3 was ALL day in the swamp. Day 4 was Osceola National Forest. Day 5 was the Long Drive home.

well, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. The punch was flooding rains in Birmingham the day before I was to arrive. Spot 1 and 2 were blown out. NO fishing on Day 1. So, I called an audible. I picked a City in Georgia and drove on. I eventually grabbed a room. I picked alternative spots for Day 2 and grabbed a few hours of sleep. Gas was cheaperstopped at BucceesBuccees peeps are soft.

Day Two tales coming soon.

 

[Quillback]

So did the danger sign stop you?

[Ham]

55 minutes ago, Quillback said:

So did the danger sign stop you?

Well, that and a lack of an Alabama Fishing License. I am an Eagle Scout after all. 

[Ham]

So, the lack of fishing time on Monday, meant more fishing time in GA on Tuesday. I was up and out before daylight heading to my “new” spot. parking with the canoe sticking out the back is interesting. 
I was heading towards Reed Bingham State Park. Nice park. 8/10 would recommend. I paid my daily admit fee and then struggled to get my 3 day GA license online. I finally had to call it in. 
they made the almost 400 acre lake by impounding the Little River. Water was flowing over the spillway and I planned to start there looking for any number of magical fish to have moved up.

my first fish from GA. 
I saw the odd Gar surface and what I think was a bowfin break the surface, but the black water makes fly fishing tougher than it should be. I caught a fair number of bluegill, but nothing else.

I shifted locations and got this guy.

I shifted to another location above the spillway and started trying for bowfin. Hindsight blah blah blah. I should have put the canoe in for 2 hours of fishing. I saw a couple of active bowfin and the water while dark was much cleaner than what I would get to fish later. Part of me was thinking it was silly because surely I would get one on fly in Okefenokee.

I got to see the eat.Magnolia Crappie (but I just call it a Black Crappie). 
my next spots were calling me pretty hard, but I wanted to go see a Gopher Tortoise.

 They have good numbers of them in the park and I saw one, but she spooked when I got closer. He was scuttling around in this burrow under ground. I didn’t have the patience or the time to out-wait the turtle .

Off to my next spots on Day 2 

[nomolites]

We stayed at Reed Bingham on our way to and from Florida earlier this year; very nice place - second your recommendation!

Mike

[Ham]

Day 2 Continues with a stop at the Withlacoochee River. Recent rains turned that whole area a muddy mosquito infested hellhole. I foolishly thought I could get a small Suwannee Bass there. nope. I did get another Redbreast SF on fly. And a Flyfer Eastern Mosquitofish. There were some great big females, but the one that happened to suck in the fly was smaller. Feeling the press of time to get to Waycross before a Tackle Shop Closed and to get tent set up in daylight I pressed on.

as fate would have it, I happened right by another  “planned” stop. It was a complete waste of time at the Alapaha River access. Still looking for Suwannee Bass. I at least wised up and moved on quickly.

Heading to Waycross along 122, I kept seeing long barrow pits. I was tempted more and more as I drove along and when I saw a good pull over, I gave in to temptation.

I just took the Bug Launcher with the micro fly. I saw more of the ubiquitous Eastern Mosquitofish, but I saw another top minnow cruising along.

it did not take long. I kept catching them. Every once in a while a Bluegill would steal it away. I was hoping for another micro to magically show up.

I caught this fish and was hoping it was a different species, but I had a nagging thought that it was the same species with dramatic sexual dimorphism. @Johnsfolly later confirmed that the were both sexes of the Lined Topminnow. Another Lifer/Flyfer!
I fished on. I still had not spent much time there. Then I saw an oddly colored panfish sneak up. I was able to slow the fly and get a take. Bang! An Eastern Dollar Sunfish! Another Lifer/Flyfer

I got to the bait store and got my Ruddy Bowfin insurance policy. Then headed into Traders Hill Campground and Got the tent setup. I had some time and I had an interest so I put the canoe into the St Mary’s river. I had forgot the fly box I needed. That cost me fish, but I did manage to get one big old Bluegill. I had survived the heat, the locals, the poorly controlled pit mix mongrels “belonging” to the locals, and the gators . Back into town for a fast food dinner and then a quick shower and bed. The next day was the Main Event!

[Ham]

Up before Daylight. Got a walk in ( a little over a mile) and got myself prepped for the day. I was really looking forward to >90 degrees.

the recommendations I got and the fishing reports seemed to show the east side of the swamp was a little better fishing. So, I pointed the truck towards Okefenokee Adventures which was pretty close to the campground I stayed in. I likely could have boondocked for free on NWR land, but I. felt like a shower and being able to leave tent/some gear unattended was worth $10 a day.

grabbed a bag of ice, chatted with Eric (one of the managers at the operation there), bought a few flys to try for Flier, and slowly pulled things together. The previous day had been a max effort day and I wanted to get everything set up before pushing off.

I saw a bowfin or two broach will I was prepping and giggled to myself really looking forward to catching the bowfin. 
I got started and as I was pushing off I asked one of the guys working there about getting to a more narrow Chute close by. He was like sure, but it’s pretty shallow and you are locked in for a couple of miles, but yeah nobody fishes it much. So, I get over there and it is tight and pretty overgrown. I was concerned that I would not be able to give a big gator room in that canal.

Behind me things looked pretty good so I went that route. I had good angles at points, intersections, sections of bank, points in veggie mats, etc 

I had a lightly weighted brightly colored muddler on my 7 weight for chain pickerel, swamp sally on Bug Launcher for Flier, orange over chartreuse Clouser on 8 weight, and a big yellow streamer on 10 weight. 
i fished for Bowfin alternating rods. Liked my casts. Liked my flys. Varied my depth. Varied my retrieve speed. Nothing. Here’s we’re expectations can become a trap. If I had expected to struggle, I would have been less stressed. I expected to whack em. I was not whacking em.

switched to Swamp Sally. I was gonna catch a few Flier to settle my nerves. Nothing. I cast tight to hard cover close to shore.what little hard ground there was. Tight to pockets in weeds. Let it settle. Watched for the line to jump. Nothing 

The scenery is beautiful. It wasn’t hot yet. I heard a Bull gator bellow. Bullfrogs doing their thing. I gentle but persistent Current takes you away from the dock and a sub 5 mph breeze kept it cooler and helped with bugs a little. I ran into a guy dunking crickets and asked him how he was doing and he said that he wasn’t catching anything. I had been told better fishing was further down the canal so I fired up my Garmin watch on kayak mode and paddled a mile down the canal and resumed fishing. I had a kayak paddle for distance and a single blade paddle for positional changes. I was sitting on the front seat facing backwards to help with weight distribution. Yeti Roadie loaded down in front of me. Most of my tackle in front of me. Net behind me. 
started fishing after 20 mins of paddling and caught a Chain Pickerel on the muddler in just a few casts. Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy. I wasn’t going to zero. Really different coloration on this guy..

gave the Bowfin another 30 minutes on fly with No Love. I Decided it was time to catch one. I grabbed up the baitcaster with a Chatterbait and covered water. Fire Craw. Looked and felt great. Bowfin said nah. Turned into Cedar Glade Trail. Restricted Use area. No motors. I had a few Fish and Wildlife crew pass me in boats with go devils (odd that those guys never have the HP restrictions that common folk do) and thought it would be nice to avoid that for a minute. I had switched the 8 weight to a banana yellow bead chain bunny Clouser. I made a good toss up that pad edge in the photo and got destroyed by a massive bowfin. Zero to 100 mph hit. Hook caught. Good rod angle, when everything came really tight, the leader blew up on me. My knot failed on the connection from 20 lb fluro to 15 lb fluro. That’s never happened to me before, but I sure was sad that I didn’t just go with a straight 20 lb fluro leader. 
I rerigged and fished further up the Cedar Glade trail. It looked great and I made lots of good presentations to no avail.

my bowfin insurance policy was a locally made lure called a DuraSpin. It’s an inline spinner on a flexible wire shaft. Good treble hook. Good skirt. I bought 4 colors because sometimes color matters right. I had it on my old BPS Medium Travel spinning rod. It is a fairly beefy medium and it was some flex. I was using 20 lb  braid to 25 lb mono. I was on my second color. The sun was fully up now and pretty bright so I swapped to a silver blade. Pretty close to where I lost the first bowfin bite, I got a take. Good Fight. In the net, Monkey is off my back. my Lifer Ruddy Bowfin.

I went back to my fly rods. Cycling between the three rods every 15 /20 minutes. Trying different things. Different flys. Different target areas. Different retrieves. Nope.

every hour to hour and a half, I would pick up my spinning rod and in a few minutes do this. I think I caught male and female fish. Males top out at about 25 inches in length. After that they get girthy instead of longer. I did have one massive fish rush the bait after I lifted it clear of the water. I would like to have caught that one. 
I really wanted one on my flyrod and as much as possible stuck with that. I tried and I tried and I tried. Going deeper and deeper into the swamp. 
i got another take on fly. I briefly hooked up. The fish took it late and the rod wasn’t in the best position. Rod soaked up most of the strip set.

fairly late in the day. I made a good cast and as I was bringing it back a bowfin moved close to the path of my fly. I did a quick strip/strip/strip and let it settled and I got that lovely solid bowfin thump. Good rod angle, good strip set, big crazy fish on the line. Well, idiots have trained the gators that a splashing fish is a free meal. So, you want to net the fish and get it in the boat to remove the hook quickly. I kept an eye out for gators, but I never want to believe that I see all the gators around me. I would never Trail a foot or a hand in those waters. ☠️

so, the fish is going crazy and I am holding on and grabbing Net from behind me. I am desperate to catch this fish. I get the fish in the net and before I can raise the net up all the way. It rockets straight vertical out of the net and powers off taking the fly line between my fingers. It jumps into a somersault and tosses the hook. I’m crushed. I’m a Blame myself first guy, but I didn’t do anything really wrong. 💩 happens especially with bowfin on fly. 
I fished on for a while and then started paddling the three plus miles out. By now the with is blowing > 10 mph gusting to 15 mph and I have to paddle into the teeth of it. The kayak paddle was the only way I survived. 
i did fish a little every now and then, but the wind would blow me back down the canal when I did. 
it took aver an hour of near non stop paddling to get back to the launch area which I fished again: 

i caught three Ruddy Bowfin on spinning and none on fly. That one color DuraSpin caught all my bowfin. I did try a third color DuraSpin when the clouds got thicker. I did try a couple of other lures which got no love. 

I left Okefenokee feeling defeated. Hot, sweaty, itchy (I forgot how much I hate biting insects), and beat down. I headed back to camp. Grabbed a shower and shut it down. I didn’t even go to town for food. I was just Done. 
I tried to get some rest for Day 4 the Osceola National Forest 

 

[Ham]

Day 4 started before daylight. I hit my walk in. Watched Sunrise while walking. 
Broke camp. Cleaned and put 7 weight and 10 weight rods away. 😢. An idea for a Hail Mary play was building so I didn’t put the 8 weight away. 
I went back to Okefenokee Adventures. I got a bag of ice. Before I left the area I got out the 8 weight and the net. I worked around the main lagoons and the parts of the canals I could reach. I might have had a bite, but if so it was very wimpy. 
then I headed to a pond where Redface Topminnows had been documented on multiple occasions. I only found Eastern Mosquitofish and gators. While looking for top minnows, I spooked a baby gator into the water. I had no ideas baby gators where even a thing this time of year. He hit the water and made the distressed baby noise and Momma came at me immediately. I backed off and let me calm down. I gave up on that pond and headed to the National Forest. 
@Johnsfolly had given he some spots and some advice. I really wanted a Mud Sunfish.
I tried a spot on the way with no results. I stopped at a major creek and that was a waste of time. But I was on my Golden Road. 250. I started stopping at every bit of water I saw and I think I caught fish at all of them.

It was Hot. The mosquitos were terrible. Fire Ants were everywhere. But I was catching fish.

Fish spot with fish was basically my best spot. I caught a Redfin Pickerel first. I had hoped for one on fly, but with my Ruddy Bowfin Luck, my expectations were minimal. I got it done though. On a Pistol Pete which I selected for a Redfin Pickerel bite. 
Next fish was my real target. Mud Sunfish on the Bug Launcher.I love them! I caught soooooo Many Fliers. I eventually quit taking pictures of them, but I loved all of them.

it could be argued that I should have shifted gears after getting the Big Three targets of the day and gone back north to try for Ruddy Bowfin on fly. There is a tonne of truth in that argument. I decided to just stay there and have Fun. I was still looking for a Yellow Bullhead on fly. I never found one. I did find lots more Mud Sunfish. Another Redfin Pickerel. So many Fliers and a few super dark Warmouth. I made the run down to Ocean Pond, but there was so much wind. I decided to culture and run for home. I drove hours to clear time for fishing on Friday morning in Birmingham. What a day! I was thrilled with my successes. 

 

[Johnsfolly]

Very happy that you got both redfin and mud suns @Ham! I knew that you would get into fliers. They are pretty much everywhere in that dark tannic waters. Lots of fun but do get in the way for other species😉

[Ham]

So I had cut and run a couple hours early to try to give myself an opportunity to fish in Birmingham on the way home.

I drove 4 plus hours to get to Montgomery. Friday morning up before daylight and driving towards Birmingham. I got to Birmingham and my spot about 0930. Hit a mile walk in and quick prepped gear. I grabbed the 6 Wt and the Bug Laucher. I put on wading boots and neoprene socks and wet waded. The creek had gone from muddy on Monday to low and very clear on Friday. Maybe too clear. 

i got in the creek and saw two of my targets immediately. Slender Blacktail Shiner and Alabama Bass. I had hard looks from both immediately. I caught a Bluegill right away.

I was also looking for a Gulf Longear Sunfish, but they are outnumbered by Bluegill and Green Sunfish. 

I was feeling the press of time too hard and it did not help me catch em. It kept trying to find a fly the Alabama Bass would just eat and trying to find a Gulf Longear. 
I found multiple Green Sunfish. I finally found a Slender Blacktail Shiner.

I ran out of time and hustled back to the truck. Loaded as quickly as possible and got misdirected by Google maps. I eventually found my way despite the “help” from electronic mapping. Not to be out done Google Maps screwed me in Memphis as well. I was mad enough to break things, but I didn’t.

Weather was going to be an issue. I kinda wish I had just stayed in GA and kept fishing or spend the night in Birmingham and fished longer (and better) there. But I had chosen to drive. 
I was getting Severe Thunderstorm Warnings and Flash Warnings. But still I persisted. Me and RBG.
The rain and lightening were intense. I beat the rising water levels that were coming for Hardy, Ravenden, and Imboden. I had replaced the tires on my truck because I didn’t like the minimum tread I had left on them. I sure was glad I had done so when I hit a torrent of water flowing across Hwy 62. I threw a ton of water, but stayed on the roadway. 
i finally rolled in about 8:30 PM

It was about 1813 miles total for the trip. Lots and lots of driving. I sure wish I had gotten that Ruddy Bowfin on fly, but I got several others that I wasn’t counting on getting on fly so that helps ease that pain.

Good trip. I caught fish. I didn’t die.