Ocklawaha River, Ocala?

[lagarto]

Hi, Wondering if anyone does much collecting in the Ocklawaha near the Silver River (Ocala, Fl), been boating on it many times, have seen a few 12' gators, wondering if that made a difference!!?!?

[Cris]

I've heard a few people talk about it.. They say there's good stuff down there, but low visibility and those 'gators don't mix well. I recall someone telling a story of how they were on the bottom of that river when something rushed past them and knocked their mask off..So hard that it messed up his neck..As he was surfacing, it hit his leg...He never went back there.

I imagine with stuff like that, there hasn't been a ton of hunting pressure.

[worthy 55]

Lots and lots of big Gators in that river. Now is not the time to go ..it is their breeding season. Wait till it gets really cold it will be safer then and the water vis will be better also.

[Harry Pristis]

Lots and lots of big Gators in that river. Now is not the time to go ..it is their breeding season. Wait till it gets really cold it will be safer then and the water vis will be better also.

The visibility in the Ocklawaha River gets very good during dry times. And, there are fossils to be found (Pleistocene only, in my experience). However, there are challenges other than 'gators to diving this river.

Hurricanes and tropical storms over the last decade have toppled many trees into this narrow stream. They remain a hazard to navigation. Underwater, these trees are a real obstacle course.

If you're drifting with your boat on a line, you can expect to be frequently hung up on the snags. It is exhausting to free the boat multiple times each dive. I always worried that small water moccasins might be dropping into the boat from their basking limbs in these snags (the larger moccasins just climbed out of the boat, I guess.)

The Ocklawaha meanders across a broad valley (as opposed to the Santa Fe which is incised into the Ocala Group Limestone). The Ocklawaha recycles sandy/loamy river sediments over time -- the bottome is sandy mud. It does not expose sink-hole clays as does the Santa Fe. It is those clays that contain some of the best (and earlier) fossils.

Although the Ocklawaha (I include the Silver River in this assessment) is not far from me, the payoff for the exertion of diving is better in a number of other, more-distant streams.