Savannah River Fishing Report - Cooperating Fish, Ideal Tides, and Top Baits/Lures

This is Artificial Lure with your Savannah River, Georgia–South Carolina fishing report. We’re sitting in a mild early-winter pattern: cool mornings, comfortable afternoons, light winds, and mostly stable barometric pressure, which has the fish acting pretty cooperative. SolunarForecast says today’s a “better” day, with peak major feeding windows in the early morning and midafternoon, and minor bumps around mid‑morning and after dark. That lines up well with what folks have been seeing on the river the last couple days. According to Tides4Fishing’s December tables for Savannah, sunrise is right around 7:16 a.m. and sunset about 5:20 p.m. The Bull Street / Savannah River tide prediction from NOAA shows a moderate tidal swing today, with a morning incoming that tops out mid‑morning and a falling tide through early afternoon. Around the river entrance between the jetties, TidesChart notes similar timing: low just after daybreak, high early afternoon. That gives you two prime plays: work the last of the incoming at first light, then chase fish as they set up on drops and current breaks when it starts dumping out. Water’s seasonably cool, but not cold enough to lock fish down. Inshore and upper‑river, the bite has focused on redfish, speckled trout, and sheepshead, with a few stripers and catfish upriver. Local charter recaps out of Savannah this past week talk about “steady action” on slot reds and trout, plus some bonus flounder on soft plastics and live shrimp. Sheepshead around hard structure and docks have been chewing fiddler crabs well on the stronger parts of the tide. Best baits right now: - Live or dead shrimp under a popping cork for trout and mixed inshore fish - Mud minnows and finger mullet on jigheads or Carolina rigs for reds and flounder - Fiddler crabs tight to pilings for sheepshead - Cut mullet or fresh shrimp on bottom rigs for blue cats and channel cats upriver Best artificial lures: - 3–4 inch paddle‑tail plastics in natural or “electric chicken” on 1/8–1/4 oz jigheads for trout and reds - Gold or copper spoons slow‑rolled along the grass edges - Small suspending jerkbaits in glass‑minnow or mullet patterns on calmer banks - For stripers around Augusta and closer to the dams, white bucktail jigs and soft‑plastic flukes in shad colors have been a solid bet. Couple of hot spots to consider: - Downriver near the Savannah River jetties and shipping channel edges: work the rocks on the last of the incoming and first of the falling tide for trout, reds, and some hefty sheepshead. - Around Port Wentworth and the bends just above: current breaks, outside bends with deeper holes, and old dock pilings are holding reds, trout, and a pile of catfish. - If you’re running up toward Augusta on the freshwater stretch, points and eddies below shoals and the dam tailraces are producing stripers and big cats on live bait and heavy jigs. Strategy-wise, fish slow and deliberate on the cooler morning tides, then pick up the p This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI.