Paddling, Fishing, And Camping On The Santa Fe River
By: John Kumiski
This story started a long time ago, about 30 or so million years*. Deposition of calcium-rich sediments over millions of years in, what was at that time, a shallow sea created limestone beds that are thousands of feet thick. Floridians live on top of that limestone!
The limestone is full of pores and holes, kind of like an enormous, very porous, and very hard Swiss cheese. All those holes, many of which are connected, are full of water, and make up the aquifer that fuels Florida's springs and supplies most Floridians with their drinking water.
River Sink, O'Leno State Park.
O'Leno and River Rise State Parks are in the middle of a spring-rich area, north of Gainesville. The two parks are connected, not only by a common boundary, but by both geology and the 75-mile long Santa Fe River.
In O'Leno State Park, at a place called River Sink, the Santa Fe River ends. It just disappears. Well, it doesn't really just end. It goes underground, through a big hole in the limestone, and pops up again on the surface three miles away, at a place called River Rise, in River Rise State Park. Then it continues, all the way to the Suwannee River. Avid walkers can easily hike trails from River Sink to River Rise and back in less than a day. Campers can camp at O'Leno State Park, and use it for a base of operations for that hiking or for the paddling and fishing portion of our story.
I took a camping, paddling, and fishing trip there. It is not a story of great conquest. Florida bass (my primary target on this trip) like it sunny and warm. They're in Florida! My trip, in early January, saw an air temperature of 36 degrees the first morning, due to a cold front coming through the previous day, so I was not expecting great things. And I did not touch a fish that day.
Downstream from River Rise, off of US 441 at the Santa Fe River crossing, is a business called Canoe Outpost. The Outpost rents canoes, kayaks, paddle boards, and also will shuttle folks who have their own boats. My intent was to use their shuttle service that first day. Surprise! They are closed Monday and Tuesday. Since that first, cold day was a Tuesday, I had no ride. I fished some in O'Leno State Park and at the High Springs Boat Ramp. I also explored downriver by car, stopping at Poe Springs County Park and Gilchrist Blue Springs State Park. And of course, I hoped there would be a mad warming trend Tuesday night.
River Rise, River Rise State Park. Energetic paddlers can paddle here, about three miles upstream from the Canoe Outpost.
Wednesday morning it was 46 degrees. Not as much as I'd hoped for, but it was warmer. It was also cloudy. After my shuttle to Poe Springs Park, I launched my kayak at the Canoe Outpost in the cloudy cold and started floating, casting. Watching. Looking for signs of life.
There were lots of cooter turtles, almost always a few in view, resting on logs. A few mayflies flitted about, a larger, light-buff-colored one and a diminutive one of almost the same color. Hawks screamed from the surrounding hardwood forest of oaks, gums, bald cypress, ogeechee tupelo, and hickory, and probably some other species too, as squirrels scampered around. If you didn't count the turtles, the woods had a lot more going on than the river did.
Cooter turtles basking in what little sunshine was available.
Even so, before long I had a bite. A little fishie! A stumpknocker! A big stumpknocker runs about five inches long. They never fail to impress me with their aggressiveness. It was the first of a half-dozen I'd get. This one took a bunny strip fly I hoped would imitate a crayfish. The Santa Fe holds Suwannee bass, and rumor has it they love crayfish.
Moments later I got a bass. It wasn't much bigger than the stumpknocker. Figuring more beef was needed, I tied on a big eelworm streamer.
After an hour of throwing that without success, I changed to a mouse fly. The first bite, about 30 minutes later, caught me by surprise. Not so much that I missed it, though! The bass wasn't big, about a pound, but significantly larger than the first one. And it was a surface strike, more preferable to the underwater take.
My first Santa Fe bass on the mouse.
The river, beautiful even under the gray skies, offered all kinds of casting targets- steep banks, fallen trees, cypress roots, shallow pockets. Many times I thought, "That cast should get a bite!" Most did not. The sunfish kept me on my toes, and once in a while, one would get hooked.
The river flows under the US 27 bridge. Past the bridge, houses appeared on the bank. I fished the other bank. A cast to the shoreline produced another surprising strike. Again, I did not miss. A better fish this time, maybe a little over two pounds! The trend is good. I'm not getting many, but each one is larger than the previous one.
My phone says 2 PM. With miles still to go, it's time to do some paddling. To this point, all I've done is keep the boat in position to cast. The kayak stays in the fastest water and the miles go by. I still don't see any fish activity. Fishing always is better when the fish show themselves. They must all be hiding in warm spots.
This fish is bigger!
I reached the boundary of Poe Springs Park. Remembering a conversation from the previous day ("The bass at Ginnie Springs are eating frogs."), I changed to a froggier-looking fly. Pulling into casting range, I grabbed the rod and started flinging again. Again, the strike surprised me, and again, I didn't miss. It's easily the fish of the day. I unhooked it, released it, without taking it from the water.
And the finale, the best bass of the day.
The fishing was a (very) slow crescendo (four fish in six hours) leading up to the best fish, right before the boat ramp. It might not have been the best day fishing. But I'm sure I'll remember that day on the Santa Fe River for a long time.
*30 million years is a long time to humans. When you're talking about the earth's history, it's not that far back!
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