Anybody ever fish for these in South Georgia or Florida? I believe I’ve read they love a live crawfish. Reckon a zman baby goat in hot craw on a jig head would be all I need in the rivers?

Fished for them in Florida quite a bit, fun wading a colder and rockier river than what’s typical in Florida. Kind of like smallmouth fishing for down here.

 

As far as lures, a 3/8 bitsy bug with a speed craw cut in half as a trailer was our top producer (it’s also may of just been because that’s what we threw the most).
 

Throwing just the craw worked but we always seemed to do better with the jig. I think that mostly had to do with placement since jigs are easier to skip back under trees.

Red and orange 1.5 size kvds or Rapala DT-4s accounted for our largest catches and were also productive numbers wise.

 

Also, don’t overlook top water. They will aggressively hit a 90 size whopper plopper. Never had any luck with spooks or poppers however.

Perfect, just the kind of information I was hoping for. I use to do really well for smallmouth in rivers on orange jigs and I still have a few tucked away somewhere so sounds like I may just grab a kvd 1.5 and make the trip. From what I gather, I bet a SK pond bug spinnerbait in orange would be killer if they make one

I caught a 2.5 pounder in the Santa fe river using a red shad culprit worm near a cypress tree. Fought like a 4-5 pound largemouth!

The advice @bigbassin' and @N Florida Mike gave you is very good and you should do well listening to them.

7 hours ago, N Florida Mike said:

I caught a 2.5 pounder in the Santa fe river using a red shad culprit worm near a cypress tree. Fought like a 4-5 pound largemouth!

I agree Suwannee bass are much stronger than an equal sized largemouth bass. They are one of my favorite black bass species to catch.

That’s what I have heard in the little bit I’ve seen about them! They’re pretty fish from the pictures I’ve seen and if their aggression is half of that of a smallmouth - it’ll be worth a trip!

Yeah, the biggest one on record is 3.89 pounds, if I remember correctly.

To me, they look more like a smallmouth than a largemouth sub.

Not that I know much about smallmouths,lol. Just what Ive seen in books and pictures.

On 1/9/2022 at 9:34 PM, bigspirit said:

That’s what I have heard in the little bit I’ve seen about them! They’re pretty fish from the pictures I’ve seen and if their aggression is half of that of a smallmouth - it’ll be worth a trip!

Suwannee bass are one of the most beautiful and rare black bass species. They also live in beautiful places so you should have a great time fishing for Suwannee bass.

On 1/10/2022 at 5:30 PM, N Florida Mike said:

Yeah, the biggest one on record is 3.89 pounds, if I remember correctly.

To me, they look more like a smallmouth than a largemouth sub.

Not that I know much about smallmouths,lol. Just what Ive seen in books and pictures.

Suwannee bass do not grow big but they make up for it with being strong for their size and beauty. I have caught smallmouth bass, they are fun to catch but I much rather catch more Suwannee bass, they fight harder than a equal sized smallmouth bass.