Commemorative Leroy Brown Fishing Lure

Written by “Bayou Shoal”

Every time I time I open up a pack of Mann’s jelly worms, the smell of that unique oil they drench their worms in instantly bring me back to the year 1975. What’s so significant about 1975? Well, that’s the year I paid homage to a fish on the shores of Lake Eufaula, Alabama. This was no ordinary fish. No, not at all! Continue Reading

Author: Ocklawahaman” Paul Nosca with the assistance of Captain Erika Ritter ….

For more than 7 decades during the 20th Century the “WICHITA SPOTTED BASS” was arguably the rarest known form of black bass (family Centrarchidae, genus Micropterus species) in the world. 445 specimens had been collected between 1906 and 1928 from their “native” West Cache Creek, Oklahoma stream basin–but none since that later year. Dams had been built across that creek in several areas since then for lake recreation and to ensure drinking water sources for a federal wildlife refuge’s hoofed animal population. Was an “endemic” riverine bass extirpated because too much of its free-flowing stream environment was converted into a lacustrine one that restricted its ability to migrate for survival during southwest Oklahoma’s severe droughts? “Ocklawahaman”, obeying orders from “Uncle Sam”, was in the “right place” to conduct an independent investigation “back then” of the status of the “WICHITA SPOTTED BASS”. The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation (Lawton office) provided information “back then” about the most promising segments to search for specimens–along with their belief “that the Wichita spotted bass is probably no longer present” in West Cache Creek. They would have wanted to know if I was able to collect any specimens “back then” of this presumed extinct black bass variety called the “WICHITA SPOTTED BASS”. Continue Reading

Author: “Ocklawahaman” Paul Nosca with the assistance of Captain Erika Ritter…..

All the way back on March 2nd and October 17th of 1975, the Ocala Star-Banner newspaper reported about the catching of a “monster” largemouth bass from the Ocklawaha River (near Moss Bluff) of Marion County, Florida. Mr. Thomas A. Johnson caught the reportedly 21-pound 3-ounce (38.25-inch long) bass on January 2nd, 1975, using a live shiner for bait. The entire newspaper article texts are reprinted at the bottom of this article for your easier reading. Continue Reading

Author: “Ocklawahaman” Paul Nosca with the assistance of Captain Erika Ritter….

A LONG FORGOTTEN FACT! In 1930 the Chipola and Suwannee rivers of Florida were stocked with “government bass” by our ancient “Department of Game and Fresh Water Fish”. These “government bass” were obtained from a Federal hatchery. In 1992 “Ocklawahaman” found an account of this long-ago fish stocking while examining the State of Florida library archives in Tallahassee for interesting outdoors stuff–and photocopied it. More about these “government bass” later on and you will be able to read the report published in 1931 by the then named “Florida Department of Game and Fresh Water Fish”. Continue Reading

Author: “Ocklawahaman”  Paul Nosca with the assistance of Captain Erika Ritter….

OUR NATIVE RIVERINE STRIPED BASS…

Some of my fellow river “bassers” have experienced this type of adrenalin stimulus at least once and haven’t forgotten it yet. You are float-fishing a small river for your favorite black bass species from your canoe or kayak when all of a sudden your spinnerbait has been “intercepted” by an “F-4 Phantom II jet”–which is now attempting to drag you and your vessel into the depths by your own 12-pound monofilament line. Now, if this small river that you are “bassin” just happens to be no further south than northern Florida and is connected to a much larger river, big lake, or tidewater; then maybe you start thinking–WOW, it might be a “STRIPER”! Continue Reading

Author: Jason Stutts (Lowhybred09)….

I have been fishing ever since I was old enough to hold rod and reel, or maybe just a cane pole.  I credit my father, James Stutts, for instilling this love of chasing that feeling we all love to feel, the excitement of a tug on our line.  Some of the earliest memories I have are being in a boat with my Dad.  I grew up a military brat so I was lucky enough to fish in many different locations.  But mostly I remember him taking me out on the Chattahoochee River on Ft. Benning, GA.  As a kid, we would usually fish for whatever was biting.  Sometimes that was crappie, sometimes bream, and other times it was my favorite of all fish species, the black bass.  I quickly fell in love with this hard fighting, finicky little fish that gives me that all so right feeling of joy. Continue Reading

…..Is it the OCKLAWAHA RIVER or the “Oklawaha” River?
The “U.S. Board on Geographic Names” in 1992 changed the OFFICIAL spelling back to OCKLAWAHA, which WAS the ORIGINAL traditional spelling from 1824 until 1892. From 1892 until 1992 the official Federal spelling had been “Oklawaha”. OCKLAWAHA (Native American for “crooked” or “great” water) is the CORRECT way to spell its name.

CLICK ON PHOTOS TO READ CAPTIONS!!!
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Author: Paul R. Nosca (Ocklawahaman)

Florida's Record Bass-sign in San-Antonio, FL honoring Fritz Friebel 20-2 lb largemouth bass caught in May 1923.

Most of us are river and creek bass anglers who fish from a small boat, canoe, kayak, stream bank or by wading. We are into the aesthetic nature of our preferred type of bass fishing and probably aren’t severely inflicted with “big bass fever”. Catching a new World Record 23-pound plus largemouth is likely NOT our usual motivation for going fishing or even anywhere near the top of our “bucket list”. But as serious riverine “bassers”, we sometimes might be a little curious about the dimensions of “monster” largemouth bass reportedly caught by those “other guys” and where they caught them. Continue Reading

Author: “Ocklawahaman” Paul Nosca

It was the mid 1960’s. My older brother had already been called away a year or so before by President LBJ–Allen did come back home OK later. A politically inspired boondoggle project known as the Cross Florida Barge Canal, which planning studies calculated would make NO “cents”, was already decimating parts of Florida’s beautiful and historic Ocklawaha River Valley. I was a skinny kid saltwater fishing with natural baits on the Pinellas County coast, sometimes getting there by bicycle or city bus. Then I heard-tell that the man-made ponds scattered around my parents’ north St. Petersburg home had bass in them that could be caught from the bank on “rubber worms”. So after enough lawn mowing jobs for pay were completed, I bought a Mitchell 300 along with a medium spinning rod plus some 8-cent each plastic worms from an Eckerds drug store (10-pound mono, weed-less hooks and split-shot sinkers, too). This was the crude start of my bass fishing addiction. I learned to reel-in those worms moving VERY SLOWLY–“like molasses in wintertime”, ha! This was SLOW fishing but my trophy bass from that era was 23 inches long and reigned as my record “lunker” for a couple of decades. Continue Reading

Author: Paul R. Nosca

Nature blessed the “Real Florida” with some 7000 natural lakes but only about 50 rivers.  And very few of those original streams were swift-flowing “spring rivers” such as the Silver-Ocklawaha.  Man in Florida with his bulldozers plus other heavy equipment has created many still-water artificial canals, lakes, Disney World, and the high rises of Miami Beach.  BUT I can’t seem to think of any man-made rivers that he has constructed ever–except, perhaps, for the Deepwater Horizon oily ugly fiasco!  Florida’s gushing springs and spring-fed rivers are REAL priceless gifts from God.  And they provide excellent habitat for several species of bass and other desirable fish along with their forage-base. Continue Reading