Some lunker largemouth swim in Pable Creek; 5-pounders and up are common.

Brett has a few clients who like panfish, which he pursues during fall in the creek’s upper reaches. He anchors near a prime piece of structure and baits the area heavily with hog feed. Once the fish are chummed up, he lowers a live worm via a canepole. The bream bite is often fast and furious, with mullet and freshwater catfish usually mixed in. Another strange aspect of this place is that redfish hold far upriver, coexisting peacefully with black bass and panfish.

Another cool trick for the creek’s upper regions is to target alligator gar with a fly rod. Brett uses a 6- to 8-weight rod, attaching a short piece of nylon line to his 17-pound leader with a barrel swivel. He finds it unnecessary to use a hook with the nylon rope, because the gar’s teeth generally get tangled in the strands. The gar are typically most aggressive during summer months.

Local anglers Danny and Gary Brown have been fishing Pablo Creek since the early 1970s, often from a canoe. Their initial interest was to learn how to catch bass in the creek. On one notable trip they caught over 30 largemouths; it turns out they’ve landed many bass in the 5-pound class and two fish over seven pounds, one of which had a head the size of a 10-pounder. They surmised it was a thin, post-spawn fish.

In their quest to master bass fishing, the duo stumbled across a very effective technique for catching redfish. They were experimenting with deep-running crankbaits in the back of Pablo, but were surprised at the number of quality redfish there. The creek is full of fallen timber, and they found that redfish and largemouth bass were using tree stumps and laydowns to either ambush or root out prey. They discovered that bouncing crankbaits off the front and back of stumps was time well spent, though it turned out there were more redfish willing to bite than bass. Danny prefers crankbaits that dive two to six feet, and he’s had the most success with gold-and-orange combinations.

Because of the redfish’s serious strength and the numerous structure, Danny changed the treblehooks on his crankbaits to stronger 4X hooks. He also uses 20-pound braided line to horse these fish away from downed timber. Danny reports catching oversize panfish on those crankbaits as a bycatch, “but they were trophy-class panfish.”

Taken as a whole, there are two great things about fishing Pablo Creek. The first is the boat ride through the creek. It’s most productive to fish the creek on the last of the falling tide, running all the way to the back of the creek and then fishing back toward the ICW with the tide.

The boat ride is a tour in itself, reminding one of Marlin Perkin’s Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. You’re riding through this narrow, zig-zagging creek that seems to never end, the bulrush grass in some areas so tall you can’t see above it. Alligators are everywhere. As you turn the corners, some of them sit there fearless, while others turn their heads and bolt for the water. There are gators the size of small lizards, little 2- and 3- footers, and some over eight feet long. The unspoiled creek also has plenty of snakes, bird life, nutria, manatee and other critters.

In addition to the scenery, you never know what sort of fish will bite next. A few anglers have landed striped bass in the creek, as well as quite a few snook—highly unusual in the Jacksonville area. There are also tarpon in the creek. Sometimes in summer, you can find an entire school of tarpon rolling on the surface. Typically they’re in the 20- to 50-pound class, which is all one would want to try to handle in this narrow creek.

It’s also cool to catch bass and redfish in the same area. Brackish-water redfish take on a darker, richer coloration and many in Pablo sport multiple spots. Often, you can cast into a creekmouth and drag out a 12-inch freshwater largemouth. On the next cast your drag is suddenly screaming: you’re hoping for a 10-pound largemouth, but it always turns out to be a 5-pound redfish. As for hooking into a 10-pound redfish, when that happens, I’m always hoping it’s going to be a striper, though it hasn’t happened for me yet.

However, Pablo Creek is definitely one body of water where this possibility exists.

FS