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FARM 13 / STICK MARSH FISHING REPORTS
BOOKMARK THIS PAGE and come back often to see the latest detailed Stick Marsh fishing reports available.
March 26, 2005
Rain and more rain!! Boy, all this torential rain is just made for those who catch fish when the gates and pipes are running. I can see it all now -- 27 boats, canoes and pontoon rigs all perched aong the banks and on the cable and tied to the poles. On top of that 12 airboats bring in 83 bank pluggers to throw across all the other lines. It sounds like the Ringling Bros. Barnum and Baily circus with all three rings going at once.
That's really the way it seems sometimes. It is amazing what some people will do for a little green fishy. Right now, the water is in constant flow completely through the Farm 13 and Stick Marsh impoundments. Down in the SE corner of the Farm, not only is the big spillway running full tilt, but the three pipes on the east side are also all open. This has blown the crappie out for awhile, but I suspect some can be caught back up to the north end of the basin in the eddies. The bass likewise will be able to be caught the entire length of the spillway basin. So, you really don't have to go fight for a place at the gate. The watrer was running hard and very dirty at the SE basin two days ago. By now, I would think it cleaner. However, it rained another 2-3 inches last night and today, so it may get foul again. Too much current flow actually keeps the fish away from the gate, itself, at times. So, be prepared to look for them.
The pipe on the east wall of the Farm, as well as the pipes by the parking area are gouing full bore, too. It depends on water clarity and trash flow as to whether fish will take up positions. The exit gate, which dumps the impoundment into the headwaters of the St. Johns River, is open and is drawing water around and through all the openings and obstructions in the impoundment. Watch for moving water. Fish it. Pay a GREAT DEAL of attention to that north canal that runs from the ramp to the exit gate. A LOT of big fish get along the vegetation on that canal's north side.
The south end of the Farm, as well as certain places in the NW section of the Stick Marsh have really been good on spinnerbaits, shallow crank plugs and our RIPPIN' Stick soft jerk bait. For size, I would opt for the RIPPIN' Stick in Green Pumpkin and JuneBug. For quantities, I would go with the shallow, lipped crank plugs (you can fish the crank plug faster, cover more water, and usually catch more fish oin a given time. The giant bass seem to prefer the slow, tantilizing jerk bait.
Crappie are excellent everywhere, spawning or trying to spawn. Lake Kissimmee crappie are right in the grass. North cover, east side is great. Kennansville Lake continues to be hot as a firecracker, but sometimes only for those who know how to fish it properly. K'ville is easy, but you can't always 'do it like we do back home'.
We are scaling back on our guide service activities now. After going close to full bore since October 2004, we plan to do a bit of fishing ourselves in April and May. However, if you have already scheduled a trip with us, we plan to do it. Plus, we will fish for any previous customers and possibly some new folks, if the schedule will work. The bass have come on so fantastically strong in the past 60 days that I would have never there had been all those hurricanes. Even without grass, those of us intimately familiar with the place have done exceptionally well. The past week and a half has been really fine for giant bass, with seven over 10 lbs., topped by George McGehee's 11 lb. 14 oz, critter.
March 17, 2005
Our good friend, Gary Atwell, and his lovely wife Mary stopped by for a few days. Gary and I were in the Old Dominion Bass Club together in Richmond, VA, years ago and we still get together once or twice a year to fish. This time, we experienced the Stick Marsh and Farm 13 at their finest. We used nothing but the RIPPIN'Stick soft jerk baits with a slow presentation. The extra weight of the RIPPIN' Stick really helped at lot with all the winds we had to put up with. We both lost count of the 5-8 lb. bass we caught; it was just so many. A few exceeded those sizes, but the sheer numbers of the bigger fish tended to just turn senses numb. We actually got tired of catching them. In fact, we switched to spinnerbaits for about 5 minutes. In that 5 minutes, Gary had a 7, and I had a 6, plus a couople of smaller fish. It just didn't seem to matter what we threw.
March 19, 2005
Happ Harrison called and said he wanted a good fishing trip for his brother, Jack. The Prime Directive was 'Jack catches fish!'
By golly, that's just what we did -- and, Jack even let Happ catch a couple, too. Jack had the first bass, the largest bass and the most bass. I don't think it could have worked out any better. In this case, we went with shiners and a 'magic tree' we keep for just such special occassions. Two days earlier we put in our reservation for a big school of bass, plus a couple of giants mixed in (you have to do that early to be sure you get your fish!). Sure enough, they were there, waiting on us to teach those shiners how to swim. Jack got a lot of bass, as well as two of the biggies. Happ mostly watched Jack during the day. But, towards the end, Happ put his two cents woth in with some four and five lbs. brusiers.
 
March 21, 2005
 Greg McGehee is a special sort of guy. He gives children a home. I did not ask much about this private matter, but will say that Greg adopts children. That's 'special' in everyone's book. Greg asked for a bass trip for his father, George, and his two sons, Greg III and Rafie. As there were four anglers in this party, Stan Daniel and I teamed up for the two boats required.
I doubt our day could have gone much better, although we did get a couple of surprises early-on. First, the 'magic tree' didn't have not one fish on it. Not one. Not even a lousy catfish! And, we were using live shiners, too! I guess that reservation I made earlier for Happ and Jack Harrison just got into the fish supply too much. I knew we caught too many bass, but there are usually a few left. So, we idled across the way to a rather shallow area full of small stumps where both Stan and I had been doing great, especially for BIG bass. Again, we found cupboard to be bare. That didn't make any sense, as I had caught fish in that location very recently. Then, I recalled that they fish had actually moved 100 yards out from the shallows the last time I had fished them. So, I moved out while Stan searched the shallow zone. Still nothing. What the heck, I said to myself. So, I told Gandpa George and Greg III, who were in my boat: "Let's go FIND those fish." The best way I know to run a lot of water rapidly and isolate some fish is with a crank plug. So, I tied on three 1/3rd oz. Big-O's (that's the mid-sized one) and we went 'running and gunning' across the shallow stumps fields. We started shallow and went out approximately 200 yards, making a big circle. By the time we had completed this circle (15 minutes), we had hung 8 bass. 6 of them came quickly in the area 200 yards out. Stan's Momma didn't raise any nutcases and he figured right quick that crank plugs might be in order. I gave him the remaining Big-O's that I had, and loaded Rafie and Daddy Greg up with them.
The next few hours were a remarkable fishing experience. Bass went on the plugs like they were candy. Fish were flying through the air and thrashing the waters to a foamy froth. And, there were LOTS of big bass. In fact, there were nearly NO small ones. Grandpa George rules the roost with an 11 lb. 14 oz. monstor. Greg III is holding one in the 9 pound category. As the afternoon waned, we discussed what to do with nearly 10 dozen shiners. Stan suggested we try the SE corner of the Farm and see if we could elbow in on the moving water. It turned out that no one was there and we had free run of the place. 5-7 lb. bass were very common and we freelined into the main current flow using Carolina-rigged setups for the shiners. We ran out of daylight before we ran out of shiners on this, a truly exceptional day of fishing.
 
March 04, 2005
Stick Marsh fishing is absolutely fantastic now. More bass are off the beds and going on a post-spawn feeding spree like none I have seen in a long time.
As we have noted before, they are very concentrated in the wood at the south end of the Farm 13 portion of the impoundment, as well as out on the submerged levee shell beds.
The better lure on the shellbeds has been a 4-inch Carolina-rigged RIPPIN’ Stick, in both Junebug and Green Pumpkin colors. We started with ½ oz. Weights, but moved to ¼ oz. and lighter equipment. In some cases, we also downsized the hook from 2/0 to a Number 1 and went with the 3-inch RIPPIN’ Stick. Since there is nothing for the bass to hang you in out on the levees, lighter gear is a better choice for ease of use and more fun. And, it also gave us more fish. In most cases, these shellbed bass were in large schools and, once located, we never had to move off the location for hours.
Down in the south end of the Farm, it is just open season. You can catch the bass on just about whatever you like. Spinnerbaits in white or chartreuse get a lot of big bass, up to 11 lbs. The 5.5-inch RIPPIN’ Stick soft sinking jerk bait has been awesome for large quantities of bass, as well as those between 5 and 9 lbs. We found Junebug and Green Pumpkin to again be the better producers, with Watermelon Seed being very close behind. A VERY SLOW presentation was the key with the soft jerk bait. With winds we have continually had, the extra weight of the additional salt in the RIPPIN’ Stick really was a help in casting controlling the lure. We also found that we could catch a large number of bass in a short period by burning shallow crank plugs back in all that south end wood. We opted for the mid-sized Big O plug, as it’s square bill and flat running attitude make it bounce off most snags (and there are a LOT of them in there). In this case, we used a FireTiger pattern. The crank plug took an assortment of sizes, including some giants. Its small hooks also let a number of the big girls get away, too. The good part about the fish in the Farm’s lower section, at least for us, is that the AVERAGE bass has been nearly FOUR lbs. Awesome, to say the least.
For you crappie catchers, the papermouths are spawning like mad at Kennansville Lake and are along the edges of and inside the grass and reed stands along the canal levees. The east and south canals have been best, with the small canal leading over to Big M canal producing really big slabs. Minnows or jigs will do the trick, but jigs will catch more fish in a given period of time.
O.K., here’s the secret (if there still is one) for the crappie we have been catching so well in the Stick Marsh. With no grass out in the open waters, the fish are schooled in the slightly deeper waters of the south east gate basin in Farm 13 and in the small canal that leads from the concrete fishing pier at the parking area to the south. The Farm 13 location requires only that you place minnows down 6-8 feet and drift slowly around. Once you start to catch them, keep moving across that area. The standing grasses around the bank of that basin are not conducive to the crappie using it for spawning, in that that form of grass is too think beneath the water to allow the fish to penetrate it. So, the fish are staying in the open water in schools and probably just aborting the eggs.
March 12, 2005
Dr. Ken Kassin came up from south Florida to ‘just get away for a day’ from the pressure of being on call all the time. Dr. Kassin deliveries those babies and we all know they never arrive on schedule, nor at a convenient time. The good Dr. brought along his future son-in-law, David Lewis, and we went catching those basses. For all the big bass we have been taking lately, we just had a dry spell on the giants during Ken and David’s outing. There were plenty of fish and they chased the shiners well. But, the giant bass took a holiday on us. Well, ‘lots of fish’ is often a great substitute for a ‘few big bass’. Plus, it was a beautiful, warm Florida day with no cell phones and no pagers (and no deliveries to make!). After our day was up, Ken and I agreed that his daughter had made ‘a fine catch’ in David. He is a fine young man and a pretty good fisherman, too.
March 11, 2005
The Stick marsh bass marked up their calendars recently. Yep, they made some red-letter days to take not of in the future. The bass wanted to be sure and remember NOT to bite and lures or shiners during the 11-13 March timeframe ever again.
P.T. Ryan makes his trip down from frigid Rochester, NY, at this same time every year. Last year, P.T. and his friend, Jack Lowery, put a bit of a hurtin’ on them, despite a raging cold front. This time, it was P.T. and George Andrews. And, the weather was delightful for all three days. But, things did not go well for the giant bass of the Stick Marsh!
Shiners caught the dickens and P.T. and George caught the bass. Both got big fish, but it was just P.T.'s ‘time in the sun’. When the dust settled, P.T. had three giant bass to his credit, all in the 10-lb. class. George was up there with around 8 lbs. And both guys caught a lot of others.
I think P.T. has a rabbit’s foot in his pocket. I am anxiously looking forward to next year!
 
March 9, 2005
 Janie Ellison must be a very special lady. She gave he husband, Jeff, a fishing trip as a holiday gift.
Jeff and Jack Bergdorf brought the gift certificate for the fishing day and cashed it in on a bass trip. I have to admit, it was a tough day. The weather was about as bad as it gets – cold, steady rain all day, with a good bit of wind to pound on us. That made it very difficult to fish any open water places, so we scratched around looking for some fish. We finally wound up down in the southeast corner of the Farm at the gate. As out luck went, the water was not running much and the fish were not working the current. So, we opted for the eddy water trick and a free-lined shiner. Suddenly, we were popular with the bass. Most were just good-catching bass, but Jack bounced in there with a really nice one right as the shiners ran out.
My hat is off to Jack Bergdorf, too. He fished hard the whole time in about as bad a set of conditions as we care to experience. The 83 years-young angler caught ‘em, too! Way to do it, Jack!
March 04, 2005
Old good friend, Walt Hoover, made a change of pace when he booked this trip with us. In all the past trips, Walt has wanted to go after bass. This time, he wanted to do something different and try for crappie. And, instead of bring some smelly, grizzled old fisherman with him as a partner, Walt showed up with a beautiful, vivacious young lady, Ms. Lynne Ramcharon. As it turned out, Lynne was a pretty darn good fisher-person, too!
I took them down to the Farm13 and the SE gate basin. There, we set out long poles with minnows down about 7 feet. Walt also tossed a PERFECT Crappie jig, as well. It wasn’t long at all before the poles were bouncing and the crappie were filling the livewell. In fact, there were too many, so we culled a good number. Lynne shows you just how big these Stick marsh crappie are.
 
March 02, 2005
Dan and Dan Schultz (dang, I stutter a lot) came to catch crappie for the deep freeze. The Stick Marsh did not disappoint them, either.
 Actually, it was Dan Sr. and Dan Jr. who filled a cooler with big, thick crappie this day. They used minnows and jigs, both. Drifting in the open water was the key to getting the fish and it had to be a very SLOW drift, too. I expect the cold water and the very cool air from a recent cold front caused this. We were right on one of those ‘bluebird days’, where you needed a good jacket and a place out of the wind.
We found we could catch the crappie pretty easily, IF we could maintain boat position within a 30-foot X 30-foot area. Once that was found, the crappie seemed to stay with us.
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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