IMPORTANT OCKLAWAHA RIVER STRIPED BASS NEWS
FROM CALENDAR YEAR 2015
SOME GOOD NEWS TO ANNOUNCE
Thanks to the combined efforts of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), some 22,440 live Atlantic-race striped bass fingerlings were stocked into the Ocklawaha River system upstream of Rodman Dam and Buckman Lock during May 2015.NOW TO THE REST OF THE STORY ABOUT THIS MAY 2015 STOCKING OF STRIPERS
In 2011, I had initiated email contact with the FWC to request state and/or federal stocking of striped bass back into their pre-1968 natural range of the Ocklawaha River (including its supreme headwater of Silver River and Silver Springs) upstream of the present Rodman Dam. FWC personnel and I exchanged follow-up emails occasionally since then. Of course I retained copies of these public record emails. Migratory Atlantic-race striped bass were native to (and spawned in) the Ocklawaha upriver to Silver Springs and Moss Bluff prior to the Cross Florida Barge Canal construction activities of the late 1960's that produced Rodman Reservoir. Almost all scientific evidence points to Rodman Reservoir (a.k.a Lake Ocklawaha or Rodman Pool) as being the cause of the ultimate extirpation of naturally reproducing stripers in the St. Johns River basin. Simply put, Rodman reduces the free and swift-flowing Ocklawaha River to a length unsuitable for a successful hatch of striped bass.Read much more about the Striped Bass of the Ocklawaha River, Florida at:
https://sites.google.com/site/ockla...s/striped-bass-of-the-ocklawaha-river-florida
Ocklawahaman