February has been a productive month, but not without its challenges. Near record cold temperatures and the lowest water levels on the St. Johns River I have ever seen with my own eyes, quickly limited my range and where I could find fish. That said, I did manage to catch American Shad in some new places, even if it meant pushing myself beyond some pretty serious pain. Find out what happened below.
First Run to Memorial Mound
For the record, Florida had some seriously cold weather early in 2026. A bite in mid-January (15th-17th) started the dive. The historic February Blast from January 31st to February 4th brought below freezing temperatures for 10-12 hours each day. With the St. Johns River at near record lows for February (the SR50 gage under 2ft,) this frigid cold was enough to kill large numbers of tropical invasives like Tilapia, Plecostomus, Armored and Hoplo Catfish. While this will be a good thing in the long run, it has led to some pretty stinky conditions in the short term.
On February 7th, I decided to put in at SR50 and head north towards “deeper” water. With lows still in the 40’s, I figured there might be shad concentrated in deeper pools and this section of river definitely has some. While I have motored through this section of river before, I had never fished it. It has been on my list, particularly in a low water year, so now seemed like as good a time as any to check it out.
I arrived under the SR50 bridge at close to 9am and began the routine of unloading the Sportpal and gear. Towards the end of this process, I fill three dry bags with water to act as ballast for the bow of the boat when running solo, something I have done dozens of times. On this day, in my haste, I forgot to complete my morning stretch routine and paid for it dearly while leaning over to scoop water into the final bag. In what felt like a lightning strike and a pop, I threw out my back and felt an electrical shock through my right-side sciatic nerve that would stick with me the rest of the day (and well beyond.) Ugh.
I stretched out as best I could, sucked up the pain, and folded myself into the canoe. The plan was to “quickly” run straight down to Memorial Mound, fish the choke point it creates in Lake Cane, and then fish each turn and pool back to the launch throughout the day.
I was surprised to find out just how claustrophobic this section of river is. In low water, the reeds rise high above you and so do the cutbanks. Something unique to this area that I have not experienced before was, the alligators seemed to prefer the cutbanks on the outside of a turn versus the beaches on the inside of a turn, climbing up 3-4 feet above you on to flattened matts of reeds their heavy bodies pushed down. More than once on the journey downstream I found myself quite literally at eye level with a beast more than ten feet long and a little too close for comfort, like “is he going to jump in the canoe with me?” close. It was either hug the inside of a blind turn and potentially come face to face with a boat traveling in the opposite direction or hug the outside of the turn and meet new friends and potential boating companions. Good Times.
A quick run it was not. With the water this low, I found each run getting shallower and shallower as I proceeded downstream, ultimately requiring me to trim the outboard into the uppermost low water position which means a modest idle speed at best. Even then, the final straightaway before I arrived at the mound required me to walk the canoe about 100 yards. The total journey took close to an hour to make.
When I arrived at Memorial Mound, I was greeted by the reality and scale of the fish kill. Hundreds, maybe thousands of dead Tilapia, Plecos, and invasive catfish littered the shoreline and floated by in the channel. I was also greeted by a stiff wind from the NNW and an even stiffer back. Through the pain, I fished the chokepoint in earnest but did not fish the main sand delta in the lake as the wind had backed up the current and there were no signs of fish there or on the final stretch into the lake I had walked earlier. I was disappointed, as Luc Desjarlais considers this area one of his favorite spots in his book. I will have to try it again, but maybe with water above 2ft on the gage.
I turned the boat around, walked the stretch back into the river, and made the slow crawl up to the first elbow upstream of the mound. I found good current but not fish. The same was true of the next bend as well. When I arrived at the S Turn, I noticed five or six alligators on the inside sandbar, so I took the small cut through to the next pool. Here I noticed some surface activity and several swallows feeding on the surface. I quickly got to work with the conventional rod and caught a couple of nice Americans before moving to the fly rod. A stripped Fry Fly was the fly of the day, but interestingly, only when the wind would lay down, creating a window of clear water outside of the main current. Each shad was caught in the silty, warmer water on the outside of the pool rather than in the cooler current on a swung fly.
I was happy to catch shad in a new place but as the day progressed and my back stiffened, my heart was not really in it. While I did fish two more turns, I did not find fish. I decided to call it a day around 2:00pm while I still had the ability to get the boat back on the car. Had I waited much longer, I am not sure I would have been able to do so solo. I spent the next couple of days basically horizontal. I think I am getting too old for this!
Back to C.S. Lee
After taking a weekend off the river to fully allow my back to heal, I returned to C.S. Lee on February 21st. I decided to sleep in and did not arrive until nearly 10am only to find the parking lot and overflow at the Jolly Gator completely full. With highs in the mid 80’s and a crystal-clear bluebird day, it seemed like everyone was out on the water.
Nearly a dozen airboats sat waiting to make the run together to some unknown destination as perhaps another dozen unloaded their trailers. Somehow, even following all the local airboat club pages, I managed to miss where everyone was headed. Add to that another 10-12 jet skis at the ramp and I didn’t even take the boat off the truck. Instead, I drove up to Hatbill with thoughts of running upstream to poke around. When I arrived there, I found more of the same. Dozens of trailers and I could hear plenty of airboats up by Loughman Lake. Again, the boat remained on the truck. Come to find out there was a chili cookoff going on at Loughman Lake Lodge. I opted for lunch at the Jolly Gator and called it a day.
My patience was rewarded the following day when I returned in spite of a crummy forecast. I was on the water by 8:30am and basically had the river to myself until after noon. With the Lake Harney gage at 1.03ft, the run down to the mouth of the Econ required the outboard be trimmed up into low water position and even so required some poling near the bridge and the split upstream.
I arrived on the SW bank of the Econ and did not see any surface activity. I probed the area with the conventional rod and ended up catching 3 nice, spry, clean fish that quickly jumped and made strong runs before switching to the flyrod. I managed several more fish using the Gamboozler fly before making a move.
I motored into Puzzle Lake for a bit wondering if I might find specks in the shallows where Todd and I found them in January. They were there, but so was an endless biomass of rotting invasives on the shoreline. The stench was intolerable even while wearing a buff over my face and nose. I continued down to Lillian’s Point to see if there were shad still there. Instead, I found a complete lack of current, and again, rotting fish everywhere. I did not spend much time fishing either spot.
I ran back downstream to the east bank at the mouth of the Econ and again found nice, healthy, active fish. While it was far from constant, there were definitely still good numbers of fish there. I think it was the cold front coming through that limited the action to a fish maybe every twenty minutes. In the end I caught my fill and was off the water around 2:00. I made it to the sandbar by the bridge before the squall line blew in with 40+mph gusts. Let’s just say getting to shore and getting the boat back on the truck was interesting to say the least.
I can’t help but say again, the current conditions feel more like the end of March than the end of February. With these water levels, my explorable range of river has been limited, and I have grown bored of catching fish at the mouth of the Econ. The fish are definitely falling back, and there may still be some good fishing downstream of Lake Harney to be had, but that is not my preferred section of river to target them, especially in the canoe. While I will likely poke around a bit longer, unless we get some serious rain in the next week or two, this might be the last report for the season. There just is not a whole lot to write about. Record drought in Florida made this season challenging, but I have caught my fill and caught several shad in new places. That said, it’s probably time to switch gears to other species.
