Upper St Marks bassin'

[J Holden]

I live on the St Marks, it been a few years since I've been up to the very end of it, so I decided to head over and do some bass fishing while I was at it. Put in the kayak at a spot maybe 3/4-1mi from where it goes underground. Landed 10 bass in 3 hours, all pretty typical river fish around 12''. Missed a bunch more. One crushed it under a dock set back in a little channel and set to doing jumps that would make a tarpon proud, that fish was way more respectable, probably 3.5-4lb but spit the hook on a jump. With around a quarter mile or so to go I couldn't even make it all the way upriver, the hydrilla and eel grass were in mats feet thick that spanned the entire river- the worst weed choking I've ever seen. Had no idea it had gotten that bad. From that point up it's pretty much unfishable by anything except punching, even the spots where you can see water have solid mats of crap 6" under the surface. It clears up quickly to just scattered mats here and there when you head downriver.





All fish came on a texas rigged zoom speed worm. Tried a buzzbait and chatterbait, no dice on either.

[Bailey]

Nice report. I've never been that far up river.

[Gulf Coast]

Maybe everyone shouldn't have bitched about the cows so bad

[slowroller]

Maybe everyone shouldn't have bitched about the cows so bad

Thats what I was thinking.

[kikstand454]

"Put in the kayak at a spot maybe 3/4-1mi from where it goes underground."

Is this a public launch?

Id love to put in here as I haven't explored that far up river either. Sounds like you had a good time....too bad the weeds have choked it out. :/

[J Holden]

Nope, neighbor's back yard. The farthest upriver public launch is at the bridge in Newport and it's another 5+ miles to the head of the river from there... Very little fishing pressure on the upper end because it's a bitch to get to.

If you had a skinny floating boat and some time on your hands you might be able to get most of the way up the river from the bridge, there's some pontoon boats and Carolina Skiffs sitting at peoples' docks so apparently you can get them up there. I've heard there is a really shallow section a couple miles up from the bridge that is hard to get past but for the most part it seems there's at least 5+ feet in the middle of the river most of the way. Wouldn't even try to make that trip in a kayak, that current was RIPPING down there through the middle.

[bman]

The channel follows the west side of the river... I've had a boat up there a number of times with my dad.
We have caught tons of redbreast, stumpknockers and catfish up at the boil. Glorious place.

there are a lot of rock about 3/4 of the way up so be careful with an outboard!

[mjsigns]

Too much Grass for me

[kikstand454]

Well id be in my kayak.
Thought maybe you could put in at the rise. Maybe ill hitch a ride up stream sometime and drift back down.
Lol.

[wevans]

I've often wondered how a high velocity fan would push a kayak that may would be the place ta test it