BigBendFishing.Net

Put my 19ft Mako in at Mashes Sands on Saturday, my first time launching anywhere other than the Fort since I bought the boat (my first) a few months back. I'm very familiar with the area from shore but not at all on the water. It was a low tide around 8am and I was a bit skeptical about there being enough water in that canal to make it out. Had to bump the boat off the trailer and then hugged the right side along those white stake poles as I made my way out. My machine was complaining the entire time that it was less than two feet deep in there.

Looking at the charts before the trip I had planned to hang a left out of the canal, cut in front of the pier, then around where that shipwreck marker is at the mouth turn to the SE towards Ochlockonee Shoal. A couple of guys I talked to at the ramp though said it was safer to head straight out, through the channel markers and then follow those out to open water, which seemed sensible enough so that's what I did. Turns out though that even following the channel markers pretty precisely (or so I thought?) there were all sorts of areas that were sounding the alarm on my machine at 2-3ft. I ended up doing about 7kts the whole way and backtracking a lot as I was terrified of running aground. What's the deal out there? I don't have access to my plotter at the moment, but this is about what I think the course we ended up on was (The RED is where I think we went with the PURPLE box being the general area where we got lots of shallow water warnings <2ft. The GREEN is where I originally wanted to go before being advised not to):



We only got a little ways beyond those last two channel markers on the map because we were headed directly into about 3ft seas and it was miserably wet and cold with all of the cloud cover. All of the marine forecast sites I looked at (BouyWeather, Windy, WindFinder, NOOA) agreed that it was supposed to be 1ft seas in the morning dying down to 0ft in the afternoon... and it wasn't very windy, defnitely seemed like less than 10kts. After looking at the satellite images again I notice that whole network of bars extends pretty far out, I was wondering if that exaggerates the waves out by those last channel markers? That if I had kept going it would have settled down some? Ultimately this was very disappointing to me because the wind and seas forecast looked about perfect to me, but the experience was not pleasant. I want to be out S of the 24 bouy to find water and bottom for spearfishing but with the way things were on Saturday it seems like I would need absolutely 0 wind in the forecast to do that, based on the experience with those swells.

Its usually safe to stay inside the channel markers, but if it was a really low tide it might get shallow in certain spots. Its nothing like the depths of the St Marks channel. Most BIG boats come out of port Panacea or St Marks.

Right now on my Navionics map, with a tide of 1.52, the area near the green channel markers reading 2ft. But if you hug the red can you would be in 6 feet.

Change the input to sonarchart vs navionics. It's in the bottom left corner on the webapp or follow this link https://webapp.navionics.com/#boating/r ... wuDt%60raO.

I kept my trawler with a deep draft 4 miles up the bay so i'm very aware of where things get dicey in the bay. Next time you're coming out of the ramp @ high tide circle around a little bit so you know where the channel is. I could explain it but it just clicks better if you see it on the plotter. Don't try it on low tide or you'll be getting out and pushing.

Yeah I just had SonarCharts turned off for the sake of clutter when making my little diagram. I was actually having a problem with my Navionics chip out on the water and couldn't get it to load (didn't think about pulling it up on my phone) which is why I ultimately decided to take the advice and follow the channel markers instead of my original plan.

I guess I"m mostly wondering how skinny and dangerous it is over there... is it really as shallow as 1 or 2 ft on a low tide just outside of the channel? Also all of those little asterisk markers labeled "Rocks" on the Navionics charts... are those all oyster bars? I know the big ones extending from the south side of the bay by Bald Point, but what about all of the smaller detached ones? Are those oysters or rocks piles?

StMarksAngler wrote:Yeah I just had SonarCharts turned off for the sake of clutter when making my little diagram. I was actually having a problem with my Navionics chip out on the water and couldn't get it to load (didn't think about pulling it up on my phone) which is why I ultimately decided to take the advice and follow the channel markers instead of my original plan.

I guess I"m mostly wondering how skinny and dangerous it is over there... is it really as shallow as 1 or 2 ft on a low tide just outside of the channel? Also all of those little asterisk markers labeled "Rocks" on the Navionics charts... are those all oyster bars? I know the big ones extending from the south side of the bay by Bald Point, but what about all of the smaller detached ones? Are those oysters or rocks piles?

The bottom is not soft and yes there are many oyster bars at the mouth..

Shallow water happens fast and 1'-2' at low tide would be on the high side. Low tide will expose everything but the channel.