Gainesville bass pro Ron Klys displays the kind of largemouths that Orange Lake is now giving up. Photo by Jeff Christopher

It has neither the size nor reputation of Florida's most famous lakes like Okeechobee, Tohopekaliga, Kissimmee or George. But it may produce as many 10-pound bass per acre as any lake in the Sunshine State.

Orange Lake is a 12,700-acre natural body of water in north-central Florida, located about 15 miles southeast of the city of Gainesville. What many people probably don't know is that Orange harbors one of the state's best trophy fisheries. It has produced at least one 17-pound bass in the past, as well as the 15-pound, 15-ounce largemouth caught last year.

The above was an accurate description of Orange Lake as reported in BASS Times magazine in 1992. Then the bottom fell out -- literally. The lake went virtually dry!

In 2002, Orange Lake's condition had deteriorated to the point that state fishery officials were wondering if the lake's once-renowned bass fishery could ever be revived, once normal water levels returned.

"I'm not so sure that I have the resources to be able to manage it," Ed Moyer, head of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Fisheries Division, said at the time. "The way things currently sit -- unless we can develop some new technologies -- I'm not so sure that I have the ability to come in and push that thing back 15 or 20 years.

"It's so low now, and there's such a build-up of organics all across the lake bottom. And it hasn't gone completely dry; (it has) a foot of water (on it). It's held moisture all out across that basin, and there's a lot of vegetation coming in and consolidating semi-aquatic terrestrially. And when water comes back strong, an awful lot of that (vegetation) is going to be up and moving. There's going to be a lot of tussock formation, and we're going to have to see where our productive areas are. We've done some small habitat enhancement along the edge, but we need water.

"The fishery there is probably less than depleted. I'm sure there are some bass out there, but you could count them all. And when you have a lake that stays down for so long with a foot of water, you're put almost in a start-over position."

Thank goodness, this veteran biologist's doomsday prediction hasn't proven true!

In fact, the grand old lake that straddles the Alachua-Marion county line and was once one of the best 10 big-bass lakes in America has rebounded with a depth and speed that is nothing short of amazing.

In Orange and Lochloosa, its 5,700-acre neighbor to the north, the speckled perch fishing has been all the rage in recent years. But the bass population scattered throughout Orange Lake has been quietly, steadily improving to the point where limit catches no longer get much attention.

"The bass fishing has been overshadowed," agreed Gene Posey, who opened A Family Tradition fish camp on Cross Creek in May of 2005. "I'm surprised how quickly the fishing has come back in Orange."

"It's been pretty good," added Mike Stewart, a Gainesville angler who fishes Orange three times a week. "I've been out there and limited out in less than 30 minutes several times."