Anglers visiting Lake Talquin find plenty of boat ramps and camping facilities on the reservoir. Some are free to use; others are pay sites. Shouppe usually launches from High Point Landing on the lake's northern shore.

CHOCTAWHACHEE RIVER
The Choctawhatchee River rounds out the top bream fishing spots in the state. The Choctawhatchee actually begins in Alabama and then winds its way south to Choctawhatchee Bay at the Gulf of Mexico. The angling here is good enough that last year the FWCC Division of Freshwater Fisheries named the river among the top 10 fishing destinations in the state.

The Choctawhatchee has remained free of dams and dredging. More importantly, it has retained lots of snags and logs. You do not have to be a fisheries biologist to know that such debris equates to great fish habitat.

Fred Cross is a career FWCC fisheries biologist and oversees work on the Choctawhatchee. He said there are many good things about the river but one thing he wishes he could change.

"Three years ago we conducted an in-depth survey of the river looking at panfish, notably bluegills, shellcrackers, longear sunfish (river bream) and some other species, and we found that the river and fish communities are in really good shape," he offered. "However, we also discovered that flathead catfish have made their way into the river, and as the flathead population grows, it'll probably impact the bream population."

Flathead cats, which can grow to 40-plus pounds, are notorious for feeding on other fish, particularly bream. However, this past year Cross and a crew were back on the river conducting surveys, and the bream they saw were again in excellent shape.

Cross said one thing fishermen need to understand is that the farther north they go up the river, the shallower it is. During normal water conditions, the lower section of the river is fairly deep. The more northern reaches of the river, particularly from U.S. Highway 90 north, are fairly shallow.

I started fishing the Choctawhatchee about 15 years ago and have grown to love the river. Sometimes I take my 15-year-old daughter and we fish with a pole and cork; other times, depending on river conditions and where we are, we "tight-line," or fish on the bottom. I don't think one method of fishing is any better than the other. Rather, it has everything to do with where the fish are and what they're feeding on.

If you get tired of pitching live baits with a pole, the Choctawhatchee is a great river to fish with a fly rod. For some reason, I've always had better success fishing the river from SR 20 in the northern edge of Bay County, upstream for seven or eight miles into Washington County. I like to drift along the deep banks early and late in the day, throwing a fluorescent green or orange floating bug or a floating mayfly nymph.

If you're lucky while you're out on the river, you may get to see a most amazing sight -- leaping sturgeon! The Choctawhatchee has a healthy sturgeon population, and for some reason these holdover fish from prehistoric times rocket straight up out of the water, only to plop back with a huge crash. Some of the sturgeon in the river are 6 feet long and weigh 200 pounds or more. In fact, one unlucky Bay County bream fisherman was hit in the chest by one of these flying torpedo-shaped fish in 2002 and critically injured. Fortunately, man and fish both survived.