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FARM 13 / STICK MARSH FISHING REPORTS
MONTH OF FEBRUARY 2005
February 27, 2005
I have to apologize for the lack of timely fishing reports, but it is really a busy season!! Great fishing and great people to fish with – it is really a wonderful experience to be able to be a fishing guide.
“Come on down!!”, the Price Is Right’s Bob Barker calls out to his audience every weekday. Well, old Jim is saying the same thing now. Come on down and fish the Stick Marsh!! The bass did, in fact, do what we had been hoping for – they came out of the spawn and went to the wood!! And, it is only going to get better as all the bass finally complete their reproductive ritual.
Here’s the scoop. We have found lots of bass, with many trophies included, down in the south end of the Farm 13 section. The first place we found them was the west side of the Nursery, location B-2&3 on the interactive map on our web page – (http://www.stickmarsh.com/stickmarsh/mapdet.shtml). These fish were generally just inside the small levee that separates the Nursery stump fields from the small canal that runs along that western side of the Farm. Over the course of a few days, we started to find them to also be further out in the Nursery. Now, we are finding them all the way to the back of the Nursery about as far as you can go. Stan Daniel says he is doing well back there in very shallow water. So shallow, in fact, he indicated he was fishing the shiners only 8-inches below a bobber. One guide apparently has located a good concentration at the south end of the submerged canal on the east side of the Nursery, too. This all says we should be seeing the entire south end of the Farm, all the way across, become really great fishing before long. It started out as basically a ‘shiners required’ bite, but we now have found they will take the RIPPIN’ STICK soft jerk bait (Junebug and Green Pumpkin), Rat-L-Traps (any with chrome), and spinnerbaits (white).
Over on the crappie side, we have continued to just catch the heck out of them. Lots of big slabs, too. Having found a huge concentration in the south end of the Farm, we have stopped the long drive to Kennansville for awhile. I expect the K’ville fish are right up in the grass now, spawning strongly. The Stick Marsh crappie, however, appear to be staying out in the open water. And, from one day to the next, we note evidence that they are apparently just aborting their eggs. Having no grass to spawn in properly, it may be that Mother Nature is giving up on the whole deal. Four days ago, they were nearly bursting with huge egg sacs. Yesterday, we caught better than 60 and not one was totally full of eggs. Plus, if we ‘milked’ the fish gently, we got eggs from her. That says that the egg sacs have ruptured according to schedule, but the fish have not moved to cover. We will know if this is an aborted spawn in about 2-3 years, if we see a major lack of 8 to 10-inch fish.
February 25, 2005
Jim Jones and his son Jim II came from Ohio to Florida to fish. They stopped at West Lake Toho to try the bass with good success. Then, they came to the Stick Marsh to go with us on a crappie hunt. They weren’t disappointed either. Lots of really good crappie, including one that was a real giant, even by Stick Marsh standards. They left out for Grandma’s house across the state with a whole cooler full to clean.
 
February 23, 2005
Joe and Mary Ann Haberberger fish for crappie with us every year. A few years ago, the fishing was so poor at big Lake Okeechobee, they called and asked if I could do crappie for them. Of course, we did well and had a ball. So, for the past three seasons, the Haberbergers come down from the St. Louis area and check our fish population. This trip out, they did great, with lots of big slabs. From the picture, you can see that Mary Ann is holding a heavy net. It was full of big crappie, but just to heavy for her to get up high enough to capture in the photo.
February 21-22, 2005
We are getting a lot of anglers from the Richmond, VA, area this year. It has been much colder than normal this winter, so many just get fed up and head south. We had brothers Donnie and Paul Henshaw one day and Rich Temple and his partner the next. Donnie and Paul had a really good day on both shiners and Carolina-rigged 4-inch RIPPIN’ STICKS in the Green Pumpkin.
We used up all our shiners over in the western part of the Nursery (as explained earlier) and then took the RIPPIN’ STICKS to some shell beds out on the submerged canals. Rich and his partner, on the other hand, wound up with the short end of the stick the next day. We arrived to find three boats sitting on our best spot (they had all sat nearby and enviously watched the Henshaws catching fish the day before). We moved around from spot to spot and caught bass, but not a well as the day before. In fact, we spent all day with catfish and chain pickerel worrying us, too. While a boat closely adjacent to us caught only bass, we caught cats and pickerel consistently, with a bass mixed in occasionally.
  
February 17, 2005
Lee Kulis and Gus Schieszler were our guests on the Marsh. We put the shiners in motion and the bass came around slowly. We had to move a few times to keep catching, as there were only a few fish at each location. I called Stan Daniel on the cell phone to see if he was doing well with his party and he indicated there might be a concentration in the area he was fishing. So, off we went. Sure enough, we caught a decent number of bass, with some large fish included.
 
February 14, 2005
Tony Mills is a local firefighter and loves to fish. He called and said he wanted to get his son fishing, so the intent was that the son catches bass. And, Corey Mills did just that. In fact, Corey had the big bass of the day. With the bass pretty active around us, a few doubled came along, too.
 
February 12, 2005
The past week and a half since our last Fishing Report has been full of chasing those big, black Florida crappie, with one bass trip tossed in between cold fronts.
We have managed an excellent success rate across five crappie trips, with only one being tough. On each trip, we elected to make the 60-mile trek to Kennansville Lake. With the grass beds all destroyed in the Stick Marsh, this appears to be the better of two remaining choice locations – Kennansville or the Garcia impoundment.
The series of cold fronts that continually sweep through has been knocking the ‘early-bird’ crappie out of their spawning locations, causing them to drop away from the vegetated shorelines and out into the deeper adjacent canal waters. When this event occurs, the papermouths appear to leave the shallows and generally drop right to the bottom of the canals and become dormant. We have had to get a live minnow right down within 12-18 inches of that bottom to draw strikes early in the day. However, by the afternoon period, the sun usually warms the water sufficiently to get a decent bite started. After a couple of days of a warming trend, some crappies are found back in the grass, or directly adjacent to the grass lines.
On all the five trips, this same pattern showed itself – somewhat slow fishing until the water would start to warm up in the afternoon. Additionally, it was noted that the small crappie were the first to respond to the rise in temperature. On four of the five trips, the catch was in the neighborhood of 50-70 fish, if you counted all the small throwbacks. By day’s end, the livewell would have between 25-35 good keepers. On the one really tough fishing day we had, you could cut both numbers about in half, but there were still some nice fish taken. Even 25-35 good crappie make a darn nice catch anytime. Just wait until these crappie go on spawn in force and quantity and you will be able to double those numbers easily.
Here are some of the day’s end pictures were taken on the trips:
  
  
Mel Peasley is 78 years old and wanted bobber action with minnows. Some fish were taken that way. But, it turned out that the PERFECT Crappie Jig was the better item.
Bob Stemiac and Chuck DeVore had more than enough fish for Chuck’s planned fishfry.
Chuck DeVore decided to rest the next day, so Bob Stemiac teamed with Bruce Gilliland to catch a decent number of crappie. Bob was also trying to establish a new IGFA (International Game Fish Association) catch-and-release record for 2-lb. test line. He may have come very close with the 15-inch fish pictured below. Neither of us was sure of what size is required.
Paul Williams and Charles Hatmaker waited out the early hours of our trip and then got with the program as the water warmed up and the crappie got active.
We had one bass trip with our old friends, Dick Smith and Bob Kestertone. Dick lives on the west side of Florida, while Bob flew in from the Atlanta area. As luck would have it, Bob also brought a major cold front with him. We only got to fish a quick afternoon and tried to find the pre-spawn bass in the Stick Marsh. It appeared that the fish had moved, as we tried numerous locations with little success. But, they did manage a couple of decent fish for pictures. Then, the front moved in, with high winds and cold temperatures.
 
Today's Weather for
the Stick Marsh Area
Past Stick Marsh Fishing Reports
Farm 13 / Stick Marsh Information Guide
Email questions to jporter@jimporter.org.
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