The dark tanic waters of the Ocklawaha reflect many shades of color and fusion of colors as shown in this shot taken by Kyle Kelley

Time Stands Still On The Ocklawaha
by Nancy J. Copeland
LdyBEARCAT

Trolling down one of the many channels that branches off the Ocklawaha River in Florida, you feel like time has stood still for thousands of years. This river is 17,000 years old, older by far than the St John's River. Once the Ocklawaha was an inland lagoon with many islands. Today, the Ocklawaha flows 78 miles along the central ridge north and east of the Green Swamp. In this 78 mile area you can find Lakes Griffin, Eustis, Harris, Dora and Apopka. 2,800 square miles of water shed drain here.

We took a channel that off shoots to the west from the Ocklawaha. It's a beautiful mirrored still waterway winding through a hardwood green swamp. The waterway becomes shallow and we cut off the boat's engine, lift it and lower the flexible trolling motor, adjusting it to low. We barely cut through the stillness, moving as silently as possible.

The morning is cool and the mist rises from the water bathing the greenery in a vaporized veil as it lifts to the clear sky. Our view is a feast to hungry eyes. Nature left undisturbed and unmolested by man... an eco-system, self contained. Here is home to over 150 varieties of fish. There is a diverse marine and fresh water fauna that have been evolving since the last Ice Age.

I was able to identify many varieties of hardwood trees here. Cypress, red maple, water hickory, sweet gum, water locust, water oaks, and tupelo hardwoods are abundant. This particular meandering channel held many points of interest and beauty. A leaning palm tree provided my eyes with the feast of a huge fat raccoon scurrying from the palm leaves down its long horizontally stretched trunk.

An alligator splashes off the log he was sunning himself on and gives us a startled look. Rounding a cypress stump, we spot a school of fish so numerous that the water seems to churn with them. A huge oak overhangs us dripping Spanish Moss from every limb and branch while its huge arms sport a myriad of air plants parasitically attached to its limbs. The passage narrows and the water lilies greet us, along with some water cabbages and hycinthias in their regal light blue blooms while humming birds fill themselves with their nectar. A section of taro plants, mountain white lilies and ferns, greet the eyes as a family of wood ducks follow their mother and scurry for cover. Egrets and herons fish for their meal at the edges of the channel. In the woods, whitetail deer and the Florida panther call the woods their home. Feral hogs there also roam free. The sounds of the tree frogs and woodpeckers fill your ears. From every direction come the distinctive calls of birds, the screams of limpkins and you can hear the ceep, ceep, ceep, of the osprey. Occasionally, a huge American bald eagle swoops down to splash the water with his feet as he captures a fish and soars upwards with his majestic wings. Sea otters frolick and snort and an occasional manatee swims by with her young calf. There comes into view a snake basking in the sun, large and fat from the abundance of food sources at his disposal. Each twist and turn adds new sights to behold. The beauty will forever be engraved into my mind. It was a side-exploring trip worth taking.

Stopping for awhile to enjoy the sights and the sounds, my project assistant and I took advantage of the time to snack and fish. He fished with shiners and some of the bass in this area are very large. As a matter of fact, at the lodge I was staying a gentleman came in with a huge 22 pound black bass. We were not lucky that day at fishing. I landed an alligator gar fish (looking very mean and pre-historic) and it seems the blue crabs were hungry. My assistant did manage to land one bass but catch and release was the order of the day. Yellow belly sun perch and red bellies were in abundance. This was a day to be recorded and preserved.