Home Page: PAUL NOSCA's BASS FISHING PHOTOS

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The Paul R. Nosca

Freshwater Bass Fishing

Photo Memory Gallery

Ocklawaha River, Florida

An Information, Opinion, Photos, & Sources Report

Compiled by Ocklawahaman Paul Nosca

With the assistance of Captain Erika Ritter

Created: 13 January 2013

Last Revised: 10 December 2017

Ocklawaha River, Florida

NOTE: Click-on individual photos to enlarge them!

The only two bass that I ever mounted

Ocklawahaman Paul Nosca's Bass Fishing Began in Florida Over 52 Years Ago (1965)!

Ocklawahaman Paul Nosca is an accomplished stream angler who has caught nine different varieties of bass plus three different species of cold-water trout along with many other fishes from the flowing freshwaters of several Southern states. Although he has fished many of the still-water canals, lakes, & ponds plus salty tidewaters that almost all other Florida fishermen are accustomed-to & greatly prefer; river bass angling in current is undeniably Paul's preferred pursuit. Paddling a canoe (or bank-walking & wading when advantageous), Ocklawahaman skillfully uses buzz-bait & spinner-bait lures almost exclusively while bass fishing moving freshwater. Motorized watercraft for "run & gun" fishing or other aquatic tomfoolery & plastic worms or live shiners for bait are not part of his personal angling ethic. Ocklawahaman practices a style of bass fishing on natural segments of streams that is ideally an aesthetically pleasing & "un-crowded" solemn quest for some of Nature's most game fishes; the great majority of bass caught to be released unharmed for future benefit. North-central Florida's swift-flowing Ocklawaha River is the home water of Ocklawahaman; it is where Paul Nosca first learned freshwater stream angling techniques & where he continues to employ them as often as possible--from his man-powered canoe.

"There are lake fishermen, and there are river fishermen, and seldom do the twain agree!" - Author unknown.

Blue River, Oklahoma

Paul Nosca's bass fishing began bank-walking the man-made ponds of St. Petersburg, Florida in 1965 using "rubber" worms (8 cents each from Eckerd Drugs) for lures, 10-lb monofilament line and a Garcia-Mitchell 300 open-face spinning reel with matching spinning rod for tackle. Although I have not always been able to bass fish regularly during these past 50 years or so, Ocklawahaman has caught well over 5,000 bass total on artificial lures--mostly buzz-baits and spinner-baits. Many thousands have been released to fight again--including most largemouth bass 17 inches or longer total length. These 17-inch and over largemouth bass are almost entirely 4-year old or older FEMALES. They are the extremely important egg-bearers and exclusively have the chance to become 24-inch and longer "wall-hangers"--MALES almost never reach 17 inches in length.

Porak, W.; S. Crawford and R. Cailteux. 1992. Biology and management of the Florida largemouth bass.

Educational bulletin No. 3. Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission, Tallahassee, FL. Available as a hardcopy:

"POPULATION DYNAMICS...GROWTH RATES...By age 2 or 3, females grow much faster than male largemouth bass. Male largemouth bass seldom exceed 16 inches, while females over 22 inches are common. At 5 years of age females may be twice the weight of males...One-year old largemouth bass average about 7 inches in length. Largemouth bass grow to an adult size of 10 inches in about 1.5 years in a fast-growing population and 2.5 years where slow growth rates are found. For larger fish preferred by many anglers (15 inches and larger), it may require 2.5 years for females in a fast-growing population, but more than four years for females in a slow-growing population. In both cases, males take two additional years to attain 15 inches. Females require 5.5 to 6.5 years to attain 20 inches, depending on growth rates, while males rarely attain this size. Thus, virtually all trophy largemouth bass are females."

"Recycle Your Bass" (cover) by Phil Chapman of the then Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission (circa 1990)

"Recycle Your Bass" (Page 7) by Phil Chapman of the then Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission (circa 1990)

"Recycle Your Bass" (Page 8) by Phil Chapman of the then Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission (circa 1990)

Most of my bass fishing in Florida since 1973 has been performed from a man-powered canoe on waters within 50 miles of Ocala or within 60 miles of Tallahassee. I have also fished in Georgia, Oklahoma, and Virginia.

Blue River, Oklahoma camp catch (largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass plus green sunfish)

Ocklawaha River, Florida mixed-bag for dinner (largemouth bass plus speckled perch [black crappie] and chain pickerel)

Although I have not always had a camera with me, the following are some of the photos that were taken of "memorable" and even "trophy" sized freshwater bass. For your viewing pleasure the most recent catches are towards the top of each separate species section:

LARGEMOUTH BASS

STRIPED BASS, WHITE BASS AND THEIR HYBRIDS

SHOAL BASS

SUWANNEE BASS

SMALLMOUTH BASS

SPOTTED BASS

COOSA REDEYE BASS

LARGEMOUTH BASS

Florida, Georgia, and Oklahoma

Ocklawaha River, Florida

St. Marks River, Florida

Trout Pond, Apalachicola National Forest, Florida

St. Marks River, Florida

Ochlockonee River, Florida

St. Marks River, Florida

Little River, Florida

St. Johns River, Florida

St. Marks River, Florida

My biggest river-caught Florida largemouth bass

St. Marks River, Florida

Lake Iamonia, Florida

Lake Jackson, Florida

Ochlockonee River, Florida

Wakulla River, Florida

St. Marks River, Florida

Lake Jackson, Florida

Carr's Lake, Florida

Ochlockonee River, Florida

Carr's Lake, Florida

Lake Jackson, Florida

Little River, Florida

St. Marks River, Florida

Ochlockonee River, Florida

Lake Talquin, Florida

Lake Jackson, Florida

Little River, Florida (rare snowfall)

Carr's Lake, Florida

Ochlockonee River, Florida

Little River, Florida

Aucilla River, Florida

Ochlockonee River, Florida

Lake Talquin, Florida

Ochlockonee River, Florida

My biggest lake-caught Florida largemouth bass (natural lake)

Chipola River, Florida

Ochlockonee River, Florida

Econlockhatchee River, Florida

Lake Ocklawaha, Florida

St. Johns River, Florida

Alexander Springs Creek, Florida

St. Johns River, Florida

Alexander Springs Creek, Florida (camp eats)

Orange Creek, Florida

Ocala National Forest pond, Florida

Ocklawaha River, Florida

Orange Creek, Florida

Suwannee River, Florida

At the "Big Shoals" of the Suwannee River, Florida

Ocklawaha River, Florida

Blue River, Oklahoma

West Cache Creek, Oklahoma (just north of Fort Sill)

From a remote natural pond of the "Big Scrub", Ocala National Forest, Florida

St. Petersburg, Florida man-made pond

STRIPED BASS, WHITE BASS AND THEIR HYBRIDS

Florida and Oklahoma

Mounted striped bass from the Ochlockonee River, Florida

Ochlockonee River, Florida

St. Johns River, Florida

The St. Johns-Ocklawaha River Basin's

Native STRIPED BASS and RODMAN DAM

The endemic "STRIPERS" of the St. Johns-Ocklawaha River basin, without any doubt, have suffered the most because of the September 30, 1968 completion of RODMAN DAM. STRIPED BASS must have access to approximately 50 free-flowing, uninterrupted miles of large, swift-moving stream (current) during the late winter or early spring of the year in order to naturally reproduce successfully. Replacement stocks of St. Johns River basin STRIPERS have been hatchery produced for over 40 years now and are not stocked into the Ocklawaha upstream of the dam that created Rodman Reservoir. The free-flowing (before Rodman Dam was built) 56-mile Silver-Ocklawaha River system was the only suitable spawning (and hatching) habitat of STRIPED BASS in the entire St. Johns River drainage. All the way back in 1961 it was determined by fisheries biologists that only two river systems in the whole state of Florida contained native breeding populations of STRIPERS: those two drainages were the Apalachicola-Chipola and the St. Johns-Ocklawaha. It troubles me greatly that an excellent conservation and fishing organization--BASS--which has done many noble things for both bass FISH and anglers--continues to support the retaining of Rodman a.k.a. Kirkpatrick Dam for the production of largemouth bass ("largemouths" reproduce naturally in lacustrine or riverine freshwaters of all 67 Florida counties). Rodman Dam is the structure that prevents the natural reproduction of STRIPED BASS in the St. Johns-Ocklawaha Rivers. I ended my BASS membership decades ago to support the restoration of stream-bred Florida native STRIPERS.

Ochlockonee River, Florida (white bass)

Lake Talquin, Florida (white bass and black crappie [speckled perch] caught while trolling mini-jigs)

Ochlockonee River, Florida (white bass)

SHOAL BASS

Florida and Georgia

Chipola River, Florida

SUWANNEE BASS

Florida

Ochlockonee River, Florida

Suwannee River, Florida

SMALLMOUTH BASS

Oklahoma and Virginia

Blue River, Oklahoma

Blue River, Oklahoma (camp eats)

Blue River, Oklahoma

SPOTTED BASS

Florida, Georgia, and Oklahoma

Chestatee River, Georgia

Blue River, Oklahoma

ANOTHER FLORIDA "SMALLMOUTH" BASS DISCOVERED!!!

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) recently reported the discovery of a new species of riverine black bass--to be known as the CHOCTAW BASS--that exists in the Florida panhandle and adjacent southeastern states. It is very similar to the SPOTTED or ALABAMA bass.

http://myfwc.com/news/news-releases/2013/may/07/choctaw-bass/

http://myfwc.com/research/freshwater/sport-fishes/black-basses/choctaw-bass/

"OK Memories Of My Quest For The Wichita Spotted Bass"

http://www.riverbassin.com/site/ok-memories-of-my-quest-for-the-wichita-spotted-bass/

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 (Fort Sill, OK) 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 "[T]hat the Wichita spotted bass is probably no longer present" in West Cache Creek. The ODWC would have wanted to know if I was able to collect any specimens BACK THEN of this presumed extinct black bass variety known as the WICHITA SPOTTED BASS.

http://digital.library.okstate.edu/OAS/oas_pdf/v59/p1_3.pdf

COOSA REDEYE BASS

Ocklawahaman caught them (along with wild, stream-bred rainbow trout) from the Conasauga River

--accessed by "Tearbritches Trail"--

of the Cohutta Wilderness, Chattahoochee National Forest, north Georgia back in August 1984.

REFERENCE AS: Nosca, P. 2017. "The Paul R. Nosca freshwater bass fishing photo memory gallery" webpage report. "Paul Nosca's bass fishing photos" website homepage. Paul Nosca, Eureka, FL.

https://sites.google.com/site/paulnoscasbassfishingphotos/

Also visit these two other Ocklawahaman Paul Nosca websites:

https://sites.google.com/site/ocklawahaman/home

https://sites.google.com/site/ocklawahamanpaulnoscareports/home

Email: ocklawahaman1@gmail.com

End.