Photo by William J. Bohica.

During the last few years, Mother Nature has not been kind to bass anglers in Central and South Florida. Beginning in 2004, big hurricanes uprooted and destroyed massive amounts of beneficial aquatic vegetation on many lakes, from Kissimmee to the Okeechobee.

That was followed by a serious drought that sent water levels plummeting to record low levels.

Those rapid changes in what had been an outstanding environment for bass didn’t help the fisheries a lot. But many lakes are beginning to show strong signs of recovery.

However, the Stick Marsh/Farm 13 complex has lagged a bit behind in that respect.

Unlike many other waters in the area, the Stick Marsh has little in the way of a shallow littoral zone. In this reclamation project, when the water level falls, it doesn’t result in the kind of natural drawdown that exposes the bottom and promotes the growth of new plant life. When water levels rise, they don’t flood such rejuvenated zones and provide a new habitat for bass. Given that dikes contain this impoundment, it’s basically a goldfish bowl.

Bob Eisenhauer, a biologist for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, monitors the complex. “When a lake is fluctuating within contained, manmade boundaries like the Stick Marsh, submerged vegetation like hydrilla can be very beneficial,” he explained.

“Pre-2004,” he continued, “we had a nice combination of hydrilla that fluctuated from the center of the water bodies to a fringe along the edges, and grew well on submerged structures like the edges of drainage ditches. Some of the most beneficial hydrilla we had was on the southern end of Farm 13.

x”It formed a good mass just off the shoreline, which provided a great buffer area inside it during the hard north winds we often get during the spawning season. It was a very stable environment with clean water for spawning and protected the hatched fry. In other areas, we had plenty of open water -- and plenty of hydrilla in deeper water.

“It was an excellent habitat, and the fishing was phenomenal.”

The 2004 hurricanes changed those conditions drastically. In fact, they decimated the hydrilla on both the Stick Marsh and Farm 13.

“Submerged vegetation is virtually non-existent on these two impoundments right now,” Eisenhauer noted.

“The southern end of Farm 13 has some degree of elevation to it, which gives it a certain amount of shallow littoral zone. We’re starting to see some cattails growing in those shallows. But there isn’t much else.”