DH STEINOUR
COMING HOME
Chasing Florida's River Bass
by
DH STEINOUR
This article was featured in Bassmaster Magazine's Jul/Aug 2018 issue. Please check it out!
I wanted to go home. I know they say you can never go home, but I was willing to try. Deployed over the holidays for the third time in five years, I was drained. I was over it. I wanted to be a teenager again, wandering down some green lane with cornflowers garnishing a fencerow, spinning rod in hand and some Gitzits and jigheads in my pocket. I wanted a lazy creek with smallmouth cruising the pebble beds and a kingfisher stuttering overhead. I was tired of sand and dust and crises and futility. I missed my wife and son. I missed them hourly. But I knew there was some mending I needed to do alone out on the water. Stationed in Florida’s panhandle, 1,200 miles from my home creeks in rural Pennsylvania, I would have to improvise once I got back to the states. I decided to fish for Florida’s river bass, and I discovered Florida’s black bass slam: catch a largemouth bass, a Choctaw bass, a shoal bass, and a Suwannee bass. It sounded intriguing, chasing down three species I’d never caught before and exploring some of Florida’s spring creeks. It was a way to go home without flying north, a way to refresh and reflect.
I passed through Paris on my way back from the desert. It was a cold, rainy morning at Charles de Gaulle but with a long layover I took an expensive cab into the City of Lights. Wandering the wet streets for a while, I found myself at Le Dôme café, a favorite haunt of Ernest Hemingway. There was an empty wicker chair on the patio and I started to decompress over coffee. I wondered if Papa Hemingway, the patron saint of outdoor writers, sat there nearly a hundred years earlier and experienced the same problem as me: I could think only of fishing. I remembered reading that Ed Zern made his writer’s pilgrimage to Paris but he didn’t last there because he missed Pennsylvania’s limestone creeks too much. I plotted a few fishing trips on a napkin and planned my Florida bass slam as a stodgy waiter freshened my coffee.
Choctaw Bass
The Choctaw bass would be my first target. It was only recognized as a distinct species a few years ago, sharing a lot of spotted bass characteristics. Its range is limited to the western panhandle, and some email exchanges with an enormously helpful Florida Wildlife Commission biologist gave me some tips about where to find them. Upon arrival back in the states I took some time to reconnect with my lovely wife and son before hitting the water. I had missed some firsts – his first Christmas, his first steps, his first birthday. Many times downrange I lay in my sleeping bag and wondered if being a good husband and father and being a good officer and troop were mutually exclusive. It was like balancing on a seesaw’s fulcrum while juggling steak knives.
But it was late March now and one Saturday I petitioned my wife and slunk out to the truck, a rod in my hand and the baby in hers. I tossed in the kayak and motored up toward the Alabama border with a vague idea of a creek to try. Crossing a bridge I saw the low, sandy stream that the biologist recommended. There was a pull-off but no launch ramp and I just dumped the kayak off a cut bank. It was 0800 by then and the sun was well up and I opted to paddle through the bridge pilings and have a look. Blowdowns sucked against the pilings forming a chute of strong, clear water that I powered through, paddling and tossing a brush hog to woody pockets. I worked maybe a hundred yards upstream, passing a meandering spotted gar until the creek widened and was too swift and shallow to proceed.
I drifted back through the chute and beached the kayak on a sandbar in the middle of the stream. There was a slow-moving pool against the west bank and on the first cast a bass bit, jumped two feet out of the water, and threw the hook. I casted back into this calm tub and soon hooked another acrobat that I landed. It wasn’t large, probably 10 inches, and it looked like a spotted bass, with rows of black dots on its white belly. It had olive checkering on its back, its jawline didn’t extend past the eye, and it had a tooth patch inside its lip, setting it apart from largemouth bass. I was excited to check one off the bass slam list just an hour after starting, and I continued casting to that sandy pool.
I got my hands on three more Choctaw bass just out of that hole, including a solid fish that was pushing 16 inches. She kicked strong and confident even in defeat and I was reminded that she was probably the queen of this stretch and I was only an alien passing through. I waded downstream and donated a couple jigs to the rocky bottom and hooked the gar I met above the bridge. With the morning warming and the day’s mission accomplished, I dragged the kayak back onto the truck and set out for the Royal Café in Jay, Florida, where the buffet was piled with fried chicken, collard greens, and bread pudding. I wasn’t in Pennsylvania but it sure felt homey.
Choctaw
bass
Shoal Bass
Florida’s shoal bass population is shrinking. The Flint River in Georgia is home to a healthy population, but the Chipola River in the Apalachicola basin is just about the only place you can target them in Florida. Invasive spotted bass are hybridizing with shoalies, perhaps breeding out the pure strain in future decades.
My trip to the Chipola started in the wee hours of a Saturday, chugging along I-10. I was thinking how suicide bomber's heads pop off the same way dandelion heads do. Remember when you were a kid and you flicked them off with your thumb? I took the southbound exit and launched my kayak at the Peacock Bridge ramp with a McGriddle in my gut and pastels in the sky.
The water was high and stained and moving slowly. The sky blued as I drifted downstream and I started throwing a grub at both green banks. Switching to a tube jig, I dragged it through swirling eddies and laydowns to no avail. I changed to a crawfish-colored crankbait and lost it to the porous limestone riverbed. After an hour and a half with no bites, I paddled back up to the launch. It would have been nice to have a shuttle scheduled so I could drift the whole way down to another takeout, but that required money and planning. I left Peacock Bridge and drove further south through Altha, Florida, which flew more Confederate flags per capita than anyplace I had been in a while. I made it to Johnny Boy Landing, a wide bend in the spring-fed river with a shoal on the south side.
I readied my gear as a red Chevy Impala pulled up, parking way down the ramp at the water’s edge. A hunched character in overalls got out, hoping to chat. The old timer squinted and pointed at the river bend and said, “Seventy years ago, me and Johnny Whiteside and Ed Moats throwed three sticks of dynamite inter that hole off the ramp.” They used to swim there and the dynamite broke off all the sharp rocks on the bottom. The dynamite also killed ‘half a tub-full’ of bream, stumpknockers, bass, and suckers. They didn’t know it would kill the fish.
Before I knew it his Impala was throwing gravel and it was 1100. I was anxious to get back to work. The water was fast on the shoal south of the bend and it was tough holding position, so after a few casts I paddled upstream, tossing a Chigger Craw and a Senko at eddies and cover. I had a dink bite but nothing else. Famished, I drifted back to Johnny Boy Landing and hit the road, stopping at Dickey’s Barbecue at the junction. It was good, but don’t bother with the side Caesar salad. The girl looked confused when I ordered it, like she didn’t know it was even on the menu.
A couple weekends later in May, I identified a launch further down the Chipola that’s two miles upstream from Look and Tremble Rapids, the river’s best known shoals. I parked beside a bridge at sunrise and clambered down some riprap to drop the kayak. As I shoved off, a healthy shoal bass of 16 inches sauntered over to get a look at me and soon drifted downstream. I took it as a bad omen.
The water was clear and swift and I ran a spinnerbait on the drift to the rapids without a bite. Hearing the rush of the shoals behind me, I hit the west bank and wade-fished around the sprouts of eelgrass and eddies. The air was still cool with the sun peeking over the trees and I switched to a tube jig below the rapids. Nothing. The shoals looked so fishy; similar water on the Susquehanna up north normally yields a handful of smallmouth bass.
The jagged limestone boulders creating the shoals chewed up my water shoes and I eventually worked back upstream with a crawfish-colored crankbait. One solid fish waddled up in pursuit of the crankbait without committing, and that was the extent of the morning’s action. I hit the launch a little before 1100. Running back up to Johnny Boy Landing I saw a flotilla of inner tubes piloted by splashing kids, so that was a no go. I kept driving up to Peacock Bridge and thankfully there were only a few trucks and trailers in the lot.
I grabbed my shaky head rod when I parked because I had wondered about those bridge pilings, and sure enough when I peered down the riprap I saw two shoalies finning in the shade. I pitched the shaky head worm upstream, expecting to spook them. Instead, they pivot to the bait and wander out of sight. My line started moving and I set the hook. The fish was in a mood to fight, but I was so desperate to get my hands on a shoalie that I swung it onto the bank and raced to grab it. The shoal bass didn’t make it easy, but I got one. Of course I celebrated with lunch at Dickey’s, careful to order mac and cheese on the side instead of salad.
Shoal
bass
Suwannee Bass & Largemouth Bass
The Suwannee bass sparked my imagination for years. It seems like such a prehistoric fish, a small, scrappy creature perfectly made for jungle creeks, having spent eons in crystal clear isolation. Living in the western panhandle, I didn’t have local options for going after them, but I zeroed in on the Wacissa River on the other side of Tallahassee as being the western-most Suwannee bass locale. I figured on rounding out my Florida bass slam with residual largemouth catches out there.
One morning in early May I took an exit marked by a roadkill alligator looking like a shredded tire that flew off a monster truck. Imagine hitting a dinosaur like that on the way to the launch ramp. Once I parked at Wacissa Springs I was immediately in Florida wilderness. It was like a scene from Avatar, with towering trees draped in moss and lily pad fields and egrets and grebes and herons and gators and pterodactyls. The chorus of bird-speak was loud and throbbing. I launched and started fan casting a white trick worm at vegetation. An early north wind pushed me with the current and I hit hydrilla stands and eelgrass for the next few hours without a bite. Schools of mullet ran roughshod through the channel and I dodged gators sunning on weed mats and followed a family of wary otters. Ducking into a few cuts and springs, I saw a bona fide Suwannee with dark tiger stripes that meandered away from my offerings.
The sun got high and hot and the wind made the trek back to the ramp difficult. I caught a small bass that confused me – I couldn’t tell if it was a largemouth or Suwannee. It had some dark vertical striping and a small jaw, but I neglected to check for a tooth patch and I wasn’t confident it was a Suwannee. I was amazed how unsure I could be about some of these fish; I had caught thousands of largemouth over the years but some specimens still baffled me.
I got back to the ramp and drove to a campsite downstream called Goose Pasture, arriving late in the afternoon with the wind dead and the bugs coming out. Two guys in a fanboat were tearing up the river, wop-wop-wopping like a sideways helicopter. I forgot how loud those were.
I launched and threw a spinnerbait in the river absolutely choked with eelgrass. Every cast spooked mullet schools frantically darting and jumping. It was an annoying way to fish. Paddling upstream, I struck what was either an alligator gar or a hippopotamus that exploded away in a gray blur. The kayak nearly flipped and I sat and chilled a few minutes to let my heart settle down. With the sun setting I made it back to the ramp where the guys were hauling out their fanboat. One man was sun-burnt and egg-shaped, the other was ratty and hollow-eyed. We chatted about fishing the river and I asked about Suwannee bass. Egg said he figured St. Marks River, just a few miles west, would be better for Suwannees because it had less weeds and some deeper pools. Rat concurred.
With the day’s futility and the advice from strangers in mind, I set up camp right next to the river. The nighttime jungle jamboree thrummed with voices of owls, frogs, insects, and animals I couldn’t place. Sparrow-sized dragonflies thwacked the side of my truck like acorns. It was a chance to feel small and insignificant as the river and woods boiled with activity, their denizens unconcerned with my presence.
I changed gears in the morning, following the recommendation from Egg and Rat (they had me at ‘less weeds’) and I drove west to St. Marks Rise, hoping to ambush a Suwannee in a rocky pool. There is a meager state park at the site of a Civil War battlefield up there, and that swamp looked like an awful place to fight. There was no viable put-in, so I drove down a dirt path in the direction of the water. On my left were houses and trailers along the clear water. I was considering my options when a scraggly old man wandered out of some bushes.
He wore a psychedelic shirt and not a hair on his head, neck, or face had seen a razor in years. “Hey sir, do you own this plot right here?” I asked.
“I do. I own this and then 27 acres thatta way,” he waved all around us, “and then 45 acres out towards Crawfordville.”
“Any chance I could launch my kayak from here? I could pay you.”
“Absolutely not.”
I was surprised but didn’t press it because at that second a Florida-class mosquito landed square on his cheek. Instead of waving it off, the man commenced to rant about how his lunatic neighbors disliked his 130 mph speedboat that he ran on the rise. I was distracted by the ballooning bird-hawk but somehow he failed to acknowledge it. As he jawed, the mosquito waddled drunkenly off his face and took off with the grace of an overladen cargo plane. I had to get out of there.
Thanking the man for his time, I high-tailed it for the main launch down south off the highway. I figured to paddle way up to the rise, favoring current, clarity, and a hard bottom over the farm-pond vibe I got from the lower St. Marks, but I slowed to cast a Senko at the weedy channel edge and quickly got some fish in the boat. The small bass varied one to the next, but ultimately they were all largemouth.
Dodging skiboats, jon boats, and pontoons, I paddled upstream for over an hour and found the water I desired. The quicker current swirled over sand and rock outcroppings separated by eelgrass clumps, looking like prime Suwannee territory. Naturally there was a pontoon boat anchored in the middle of this section, and I withheld casts as I slid by. A leathery old lady flattered me with some catcalls as a group of overnourished young ladies in sausage-casing bikinis giggled. A spindly guy on the bow stared at a cork bobber and sure enough, a foot long Suwannee bass finned in the shade of a pontoon.
I continued on and caught a couple largemouth in the heat of the day and when the shadows lengthened I started the long, sore paddle back. Savannah’s Country Buffet was a highlight of the sweaty day before I drove west.
When I told my wife I intended to go after Suwannee bass once more, she suggested I had a mental handicap. The military was moving us again that summer (move number five), and the hassle of selling our Florida house and buying at the new location, along with the myriad other associated details, meant there were probably more productive ways to spend my time than chasing little green fish. Also, it had also been a historically rainy year for Florida and all the rivers were high (and this was still pre-Hurricane Irma). But, I’m an angler. And anglers aren’t overly fond of reason if it curbs our time on the water. I was bent on catching a Suwannee and completing the bass slam.
This time I chose water in the center of the Suwannee bass zone: the Sante Fe River, a tributary of the Suwannee River near Gainesville. I snuck off base early one afternoon and drove four and a half hours to O’Leno State Park. The park ranger spat as I pulled up and he said, “River’s closed. Water’s way too high to launch.”
I sat there with the truck idling. “Well, can I just go look?”
“Ok, but the fishin’ won’t be worth a dern.”
He was right. The tannic water bulged over the banks and rushed through knots of cypress. I casted some from the bank, but it was an obvious no-go. I packed up and headed west.
Suwannee & Largemouth
bass
Despite whiffing on the slam, the opportunity to chase river bass brought me home. The sights, sounds, and characters didn’t always resemble the water I grew up fishing, but they were salve for post-deployment scars nonetheless. Before heading out to the Sante Fe, I cracked open my 1965 McClane’s Standard Fishing Encyclopedia to the Suwannee bass excerpt. It read: “It is of little value to fishermen. The Suwannee Bass seldom attains a length of 10 inches.”
Just the pep talk an obsessed angler needs.
