2011 / 2012 Drawdown

Reservoir Conditions

By Bob Andry

July 14th and it's definitely summer with high humidity and high temperatures but if it weren't for these two facts you would think it is still spring on Rodman. Only a little hydrilla has reached the water surface and it is no deterrent for getting your boat just about anywhere you want to go.

One would expect the old river channel between Orange Springs and Eureka to be blocked by now. It probably will be blocked soon, but during this trip only two places had problems and they were minor. A loose lettuce pack at channel marker 96 caused me to slow down but it was so loose that my boat pushed right through it.

About two bends past the Ox Bow Bend a large pennywort tussock had moved and blocked the channel, but my boat pushed it right out of the way and parked it along side of the channel. Perhaps it will stay there. There was a lot of loose water lettuce moving with the current so by the middle of August, I expect to see some serious blockages.

Central Florida has experienced some heavy rains during the past couple of weeks and one would expect the visibility into the water to shorten because to the flood plain flushing. Surprisingly, this has not occurred. Water clarity was as good as it was in May and June during the drought with one being able to see at least ten feet into the water everywhere but at Eureka. Near the old Fort Brooke site the visibility was fourteen feet.

August 15th saw little change in the reservoir's conditions. Water clarity near old Fort Brooke was still great. The 7.95 inches of rain during the past thirty days had only reduced the visibility in to the water to twelve feet, only two feet less than last month's fourteen feet.

The hydrilla was still refusing to cover the water's surface and navigation was pretty good any where in the pool and most of the transitional zone with one exception. The exception had nothing to do with hydrilla. The channel was blocked between Orange Springs and Cracker Landing by water lettuce, pennywort and a whole bunch of other floating plants. The expected blockage at channel marker 96 had not grown. It was still there, but could easily be pushed through as was the case last month. This was very puzzling because between marker 96 and the Ox Bow Bend there was a lot of loose floating stuff that you would have thought would have been part of the weed pack at marker 96.

It wasn't until the first left hand bend south of the Ox Bow Bend that I ran into a real bang-up channel blockage and there was no reason for it to have been there.

The channel was wide and deep, twenty feet deep on the outside of the bend. The bend was a slow bend and I could see nothing like a big log or large tussock that could have started the blockage.

The light bulb in my head finally got turned on! Four days before the 15th we had had a really bad storm with winds out of the east. Several trees had been blown down around the north end of the national forest. It looks like this blockage was a wind generated blockage and the wind had done such a good job of packing the weeds in the bend that they couldn't get loose. You can bet your bippy that if they do get loose that they will just pack up again at the Ox Bow Bend or marker 96, so I feel the channel is probably permanently blocked until winter kills back the offending water lettuce.

The fishing reports that I hear say that bass fishing is still good with trophy bass still being caught, but you have to be there at first light and you might as well plan on being home by noon. Brim fishing in the riverine zone is slow because of the high water. All the fish are under the trees lining the channel because that is where the good things to eat are hiding.