Reno Alley will be catching largemouths like this one from South Florida lakes in July. Photo by Bud Reiter.

When it comes to water levels, South Florida bassers have been on a roller-coaster ride for the last decade: high today, low tomorrow, and somewhere in between in the meanwhile. It’s made patterning bass more than difficult. But this year, anglers should see a bit more stability, although it may be an inconvenient situation for some.

The spring of 2007 saw many South Florida waters down to levels reached only under severe drought conditions. Most of the lake systems were down anywhere from 3 to 6 feet.

Given the high-water conditions that plagued the area following recent hurricanes, that’s quite a change.

And the reasons for the situation are almost comical.

The “Global Warming” crowd had a field day after the recent hurricanes dumped huge amounts of water on the Sunshine State. The “experts” assured us more and more of the same was in store and predicted that 2006 would be one of the most severe hurricane years to date.

Water managers, acting on those predictions lowered lake levels throughout South Florida to prepare for this forecast deluge.

But Mother Nature didn’t get the memo. The 2006 hurricane season wasn’t. In terms of rainfall, we got zip, zero, nada. In fact, South Florida received about half its normal annual rainfall.

As of the spring of 2007, all the major lake systems on the south end of the peninsula were at extreme low water levels. Even the St. Johns River that rises there was extremely low.

That may change as the summer rainy season kicks in. Or, depending upon rainfall levels, it may not. Even significant rainfall may not be anywhere near enough to bring the lakes back to normal levels.

That’s not such a bad thing for fishermen, however. In fact, in both the short term and the long term, it could spell good news for anglers this month. Here’s why.

LAKE OKEECHOBEE
High water has plagued the Big O for the last couple of years, and the results weren’t pretty. With lake levels over 17 feet, even modest winds built up waves that rolled right over the buffer vegetation protecting the key littoral zones. The end result was extremely turbid water that decimated critical vegetation.

Without vegetation, bass lacked sheltered spawning sites, and any fry that did manage to hatch lacked the protection needed to reach a survivable size. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission biologists monitoring the lake feel that at least one year-class of bass was lost, although the existing population of adult bass is still very good.

High water was the culprit, and low water was desperately needed. That arrived in 2006. Last spring, the water level fell to 11.7 feet -- which qualifies as extreme low water on Okeechobee. That was welcomed by many fishermen.

“The current low-water situation is going to be a very positive thing for Lake Okeechobee,” said Jim Wells, of Roland Martin’s Marine Center. “It is precisely what we have needed for the last couple of years and it will really rejuvenate this lake.”

Any lake in Florida benefits from periodic low-water levels that dry out the shallow littoral zones and increase the growth of native plants.

Man-made drawdowns have become a fact of life on lakes where water levels can be manipulated. These have acted to maintain the high-quality fisheries we find on the Kissimmee Chain, Rodman Reservoir, Lake Talquin, and others.

On those lakes that are not as easy to manipulate, low water and drought conditions accomplish the same thing. That’s precisely what the Big O and other south Florida waters are experiencing right now.

Water clarity has already improved significantly on the Big O, and vegetation is growing back in places where it hasn’t been seen in almost five years. Anglers report seeing increasing areas of peppergrass, needle grass, and joint grass in the shallows.

In more open waters, shrimp grass is making a remarkable comeback as well. The latter is important.

“Shrimp grass is a key open-water plant,” Wells noted. “It provides all the ingredients needed for an open-water food chain and it’s one of the things that makes the Big O such a productive lake. The low water is allowing the shrimp grass to come back so strongly that in some of the clearer areas, it looks like there’s a green lawn on the bottom.”