Georgia Southern University

College Ambassador: Jon Spiers

Species

Redfish: Savannah has redfish fisheries and it is easy to find places to sight cast on low tides and flood tides. Flood tides are the most accessible because you can wade, kayak, and use a skiff to access them. Low tides are more limited to kayaks and boats unless you know some secret spots…Lots of fun throwing flies at a school of trailers on a low tide, but it's hard to beat a redfishing trying to engulf a gurgler fly on the flood tide. 

Speckled Trout: Savannah also has an amazing speckled trout fishery with lots of locations that can produce whether you’re land based fishing or out on the water. Trout bite best in fall and winter months and can be found on structure or deep holes around creeks, docks, oyster banks, and seawalls. This gives you lots of places to target them. While there is opportunity to catch specks on the fly if you hit the bite right it is a lot easier to hammer them on conventional gear as they are usually in deeper water. 

Tarpon: Now, most people don’t think of the Georgia coast as an area to target tarpon, but man in the summer months do the big fish stack up. From around late May- the end of September you can target big tarpon, most over 100lbs in big schools off the beaches, in inlets, and in some creeks. There are opportunities for targeting this fish on fly when they’re laid up in deep holes in creeks, hitting schools of bait in channels, and daisy chaining off the beach. Your chances are better using big live pogies or mullet, but under the right conditions you can have a great opportunity to catch once in a lifetime tarpon on fly off our coast. 

Pelagics: Though it is not an easily accessible fishery, often resulting in long runs up to 120 miles, we do have an incredible offshore fishery for pelagics. In the spring we always have a great run of dolphin through the gulf stream which starts around 80 miles off the coast. My favorite lures for targeting dolphin are sea witches and chuggers rigged with ballyhoo. When trolling in the gulf stream you also have the opportunity to catch wahoo, blackfin tuna, sailfish, white marlin, and blue marlin. 

Bottom Fishing: The bottom fishing off the Georgia coast can really be incredible if you hit it right. With the overabundance of red snapper you’ll be wishing you can get away from them. Closer to shore at the public artificial reefs there is opportunity to catch black sea bass, trigger fish,cobia, and of course red snapper. As you push further offshore to around 40-80 miles you’ll start catching vermillion snapper, groupers, amberjacks, mangrove snappers, mutton snapper, and a variety of other reef species. 

Bass Fishing: Being from the coast I am a huge saltwater guy, but as far as accessibility from Statesboro this is going to be the ticket. There are tons of ponds on and around campus that are public and private that can provide great opportunities for bass fishing on both fly and conventional tackle. Though there are some public ponds I have had luck getting in touch with landowners for permission to fish their ponds, and most likely you’ll meet or know someone who has access to a pond.

Accessibility

Savannah: Savannah is the closest area of access to the saltwater from statesboro  with just an hour of driving you have access to numerous boat ramps, public fishing docks, beaches, and areas to wade into the floodtide.Savannah also has an amazing downtown that offers great food, music, and drinks. It is super cool to have a place with such great fishing and a rich lowcountry culture so close to campus. I definitely recommend driving down for a day to do some fishing and to grab some great food. 

GSU Golf Course: Though this is a golf course and a bit risky to fish on during hours, after hours offers some great fishing, and is a great place to start when figuring out where to bass fish in statesboro. 

Permission on Private Ponds: If you're having hard luck fishing public waterways in Statesboro or don’t know anyone who has access to any ponds in the area a good way to try to gain new spots is to look for good looking ponds on maps and ask for permission. Now, this doesn’t work everytime, and most of the time you’ll either get turned down or even chased off, but if it does work out you could have a really awesome place to fish.

Community

While you’ll find that there are many people who like to fish and love it, but it’s hard to find people who want to fish over going out or partying. I think it's easy to say that this could be the case at lots of college towns. I was able to find a group of buddies who enjoyed fishing and would make the trip down to the coast to chase some fish, as well as go try to stick a nice bass or two after class.

Hangouts/Shops

Dunham’s Sports: This is the best shop around town for your conventional gear needs. It is located off Northside Drive. It’s like your average sporting store with the bass fishing necessities you need for some good pond fishing.