St. Johns River Fishing Guides and Conditions, Florida

About the St. Johns River

The St. Johns flows north for three hundred and ten miles from the marshes south of Melbourne to Jacksonville and the Atlantic, dropping less than thirty feet the whole way. That almost nonexistent gradient is why it fishes the way it does: the upper basin is a chain of shallow lakes, marsh runs and canals rather than a defined channel, and the whole system behaves more like a slow lake network than a river.

It is a bass fishery first. The upper basin around Lake Poinsett, Lake Washington and the Puzzle Lakes grows heavy largemouth on a diet of shiners and shad, and Florida trophy-bass trips run here all winter and spring. Black crappie, which Floridians call specks, are the other headline: the winter run in the lakes and the deeper river bends draws boats from all over the state. Bluegill and redear sunfish, channel catfish, and a spring run of American shad in the middle river round it out, and striped bass show up in the cooler reaches.

The Cocoa gauge reads the upper basin, and its numbers are small by river standards because the gradient is so flat. What matters here is trend and stage rather than a headline discharge figure. After a wet season the marsh fills and fish scatter into flooded vegetation across thousands of acres; as the water falls they pull back into the runs, canals and lake edges, and the fishing concentrates. Wind matters more than flow on the open lakes.

Guides fish it from bass boats and airboats, often with wild shiners for the biggest fish and artificials the rest of the time. Cocoa, Titusville, Melbourne and Sanford are the bases for the upper and middle river; the lower river below Palatka is a different, wider, more tidal fishery.

Access

Lone Cabbage and State Road 520: upper basin ramps near the gauge.
Lake Poinsett and Camp Holly: classic upper-basin bass and crappie water.
Puzzle Lakes and Three Forks: marsh runs south of Lake Washington.
Mullet Lake Park and Lake Harney: middle river access in Seminole County.
Lake Monroe at Sanford: town ramps and the widest of the upper lakes.
Astor and Lake George: the big open water of the middle river.
Palatka: the head of the lower, tidal river.

Seasons

Winter: peak crappie fishing and the trophy largemouth spawn window; the busiest season.
Spring: post-spawn bass, shad in the middle river, warm days and hard afternoon wind.
Summer: hot, high water in the marsh, early mornings and topwater along the edges.
Fall: falling water pulls fish out of the marsh and concentrates them; underrated months.