St. Johns River: Dissecting Shell Bars

z we were talking about Micah Fraser right now just fishing the shale bars we mentioned it yesterday we showed some of those canals and some of those site fishing areas that we were keying in on yesterday for folks at home maybe don't know what shell bars in Florida mean it's not like ledge fishing in in Tennessee or something that's really talked about but as we look at the map I mean it's it's it's kind of a noticeable place as long as you know which way the river flows well really I got to talk with cliff Prince a whole bunch about this really about you know what makes a good shale bar and how do you know and stuff like that he has so much time out here here's if you really watched Micah Fraser today here's the problem that that a non-local has coming trying to locate shale bars he just doesn't have enough time really Micah Fraser said I've got to shale bars one is a complete Community Hall the other one we decimated a guy like cliff Prince has so many to go through and and the difference of a shale bar really here on the st. Johns River it's a shallower gig compared to say a Tennessee River you know a lot of times when they get out on the ledges on a Tennessee River there they're shallow 5 to 10 feet of water for a day or two and then they start to fade in that notorious 10 to 25 feet of water here in the st. Johns River it's more of a 4 to 10 foot of water and generally it's a small irregularity it might not even be a shale bars we heard cliff prints say today it might just be an irregularity off of a point where the current does something different but like anywhere we go anywhere we go where it turns into a Ledge type deal a shale Bart's ideal it's getting on the correct rotation the one thing we have not seen yet today we have not seen cliff prints hit that rotation correctly like we saw him do on day number 1 we had we caught 7 fish and 8 casts and cold three or four times that's that was the big deal and really the other difference here Ronnie compared to our notorious you know Tennessee River ledge tie deals you're constantly waiting for current you're waiting for them pull water push water or whatever it might be the difference here on the st. River you're really waiting for a tide switch a tide fluctuation and the other side of on the st. Johns River it's not a tide switch of three to four to five feet this river only fluctuates call it 13 to 18 inches of water but that's the whole thing is getting that timing down right and really we got to see where where where clip parents made his hay yesterday was about this time of day and one thing if we're looking at the map to identify where some of these things would be st. Johns River flows south to north right so it's not like the currents coming down this way if it does it's going to come in and out because of the tide but it's going this way most of the time the way it flows in so places like this this is kind of where Micah Fraser spot is and it makes sense because the river flows this way hits that spot it's kind of I guess where it throws the shells or they sit and end up getting displaced but it's also at the mouth all these creeks and canals dump into the main river right there you know the interesting thing about the interesting thing about the st. Johns River whether you're talking about betting bass or you're talking about where the key you know main river shale bars are is is the locals tell you where they're at if you see guys post it up on the flats and Lake George or you see them drifting shiners out on this main river trust me they're a pretty good clue that is where it's going down at cliff prints and some of the other shale bar guys got to basically survive these good site fishing days make it to the weekend and they'll be able to probably prosper

Channel: Bassmaster

Views: 11,977

Rating: 4.7272725 out of 5

Keywords: BASS, B.A.S.S., Fishing, bass fishing, Bassmaster

Id: kaWniAziWTc

Length: 3min 48sec (228 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 09 2019