**The cold water curse hanging on**

**The cold water curse hanging on**

**JIM SUTTON**

**The St. Johns River and area lakes**

**It been slow in the freshwater for the most part, all week long.**

The exception is Lake George, where an almost dead bite for three weeks turned on this week with the bluegill and shellcracker bedding. Yes, that strange for this late in the year. But guide Adam Delaney at Georgetown Marina says the fishing is hot right now. We had a new moon Wednesday night, so the next couple of days should be very good.

Elsewhere, the river has been better than the creeks for a change, and that likely because of the lower water temperatures and moving water. The panfish bite has been very slow in most of the tributaries.

The river shrimping remains pretty slow. Most netters are catching enough small shrimp to use for bait, but that about it. The size is getting more mixed this week with some larger shrimp being netted.

The mullet are getting thicker in the river. One river source who knows what good smoked mullet are said that a friend brought him some black mullet netted this week fresh off the smoker. He said that they did not have the normal hint of river “muddiness generally associated with the St. Johns variety and figures that the higher salinity in the river may have a lot to do with that. It makes sense to me.

Redfish are still all over the river. And there were some good reports of anglers actually targeting flounder, and successfully, from Doctor Inlet to the Buckman Bridge. Plumber Cove was specifically mentioned. He also seen a couple of tarpon rolling off his dock around Julington Creek. It it salty out there.

Croakers and yellomouth trout are being caught in the channels from Mile Marker 18 to the Shands bridge. And there a good bite of stripers under that bridge around nightfall on the bridge pilings there, too.

**The Intracoastal Waterway**

Flounder remain scattered and on the small side (except the one in this week photo). Fishing the inlet will get you bigger fish. Fishing the docks with finger mullet or mud minnows will get you more.

Redfish are in deeper water when the sun shines hot and in the creeks early in the mornings. Trout dont do much during the daylight hours but turn on at night around dock lights.

There are some larger whiting ganging up in the inlet channel along with some jumbo redfish. Black drum are being caught in the deepest water you can find.

**the atlantic**

While there were some nice kingfish caught over the weekend in the Ancient City Game Fish Association Kingfish Challenge, it appears that the vast majority of larger fish were caught either off Cape Canaveral or the Georgia coast. One angler reported running all the way to the Cape and seeing absolutely no pogie pods all the way down there  and that 125 miles.

We have smaller fish off the coast here from 60 to 100 feet and not a lot of them. The amberjack bite has been the best. Big barracuda are ranging all over the local reefs and wrecks. There were enough cobia caught to warrant a trip out there this weekend (which looks pretty).

Bottom fishing from the ledge back west has been terrible. Charter boats picked up mangrove snapper, amberjack and some nice African pompano this week inside the ledge. But if you notice, all three of these species come up off the bottom to feed.

Bottom fishing has stunk. Party boats are living off sharks and AJs. Even the commercial guys targeting vermillion snapper are being shut down. The culprit is a cold water inversion out there that killing bottom fishing.

It also shutting down the bait pods out on the reefs and wrecks. Guys are marking them on bottom machines, but theyre not hitting Sabiki rigs or anything else.

And the cold water on the beach remains, pretty much running off all the pogie pods and keeping king mackerel away  in droves. Anglers have been pounding a pod of pogie in Salt Run, but it cant take that kind of pressure for long.

Unless something strange happens  and it does all the time these days  getting live bait will be a problem this weekend. Stock up on the frozen stuff accordingly.

**the weather**

The weatherman says well have a very nice weekend for anglers, with southwest winds at 10-15 knots both Saturday and Sunday. The seas will be at 2 feet and there will be lots of sunshine.

**Jim Sutton provides a weekly fishing report for The Record. Reach him at [email protected]**

**Photo:**

**Perry Herrin with a beautiful 9.75-pound flounder brought in last week at Devil Elbow Fishing Resort on Crescent Beach.**