Largemouth bass and redfish share the waters here. Capt. Brett Cannon, left, and John Eggers compare catches.

Just south of Butler Bridge on the west side of the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW), is Jacksonville’s own Pablo Creek, one of the most unique features in the city limits.

The reason? Pablo Creek has a significant amount of fresh water, unlike all other creeks connecting to the ICW in this region. Other creeks are filled with oyster mounds and spartina grass shorelines most often associated with typical Northeast Florida saltwater tributaries. The brackish confines of Pablo allow it to grow an entirely different assortment of plant life on its shores.

For instance, tall bulrushes decorate the banks of this rather narrow, brackish tributary. That’s one reason Pablo’s relatively undeveloped shorelines have anglers returning again and again, for another taste of its great scenery. This unspoiled creek is bordered by the Dee Dot Ranch and Pablo Creek Golf Course. The only man-made structure on the creek is a small bridge, one dock and a dike in the back of the creek, located just north of a stretch of the ICW known as Palm Valley. The short bridge is located fairly close to the mouth of the creek. Its low clearance restricts larger craft from entering and when the tide is high, even smaller craft have to use caution passing beneath the bridge; anything higher than the average poling platform stands too tall.

The creek is narrow and has numerous small feeders. In addition to the bulrushes in its upper reaches, it also has some spartina grass and a few oyster mounds in the short, salty stretch near the mouth. Pablo is greatly influenced by tide as well; there’s at least a 4-foot tide drop and the current can be very fast during certain tide phases, which can make it a challenging place to fish. Pablo’s depths average around eight feet—however, there are some holes around the creek bends where depths plummet to 20 feet. It’s one of the more navigable creeks in the ICW, although boaters must be cautious of logs and stumps that spread out along the shore throughout the creek.

Captain Brett Cannon has been guiding on Pablo Creek for the past five years, but he’s been fishing there for over 15. If one of the many alligators in Pablo Creek were to recognize anyone, they would recognize Brett’s 21-foot skiff, known as the Whompus Cat.

A huge alligator takes a dip.

I recently fished this creek with Brett, who shared numerous tips and interesting approaches for fishing this wonderful place. Most of his pointers hinged on fishing the creek in relation to tidal phases. He likes to target a variety of salt and freshwater species here, depending upon the season.

Brett had a great tip for targeting largemouth bass in the creek, one of the more challenging species to catch here. He consults his Florida Sportsman Fishing Planner, and looks for days with an extreme low tide. He prefers to fish an hour before until an hour after low tide. His favorite lure for bass here is an unweighted, tequila shad-colored, 6-inch, curly-tail plastic worm. Days with negative low tides are best; that negative number denotes a below-normal low tide. His favorite scenario is a negative low tide coupled with a west wind, which blows water out of the ICW back to the Atlantic. That drops tides even lower. He says when conditions are right for extreme low tides, bass are concentrated in a small ditch of water, and it’s just a matter of tempting them with the right lure.

Brett actually spends the majority of his time on the water guiding for saltwater species, and he’s seen great action on spotted seatrout, flounder and redfish in this little-known creek. He prefers the last of the falling tide, and casts 1⁄4-ounce jigs tipped with live shrimp on lightweight spin outfits. He targets the mouths of various small feeder streams throughout the creek, where gamefish usually wait to ambush prey. In late winter and early spring Brett also likes to work deeper creek bends, where he’s tapped into a significant population of black drum that holds in these deeper stretches. He’s landed drum to eight pounds there, which offer one heck of a fight on light spin tackle.