Featured Site: Lower Blackwater River – Striped Bass Fishing
Size: 58 miles long (49 miles in Florida)
Location: Okaloosa through Santa Rosa County
Description: The Blackwater River, located in the Florida Wildlife Commission’s (FWC) Northwest Region here in our area, is a 58-mile-long river of which 49 miles are in Florida. The river’s headwaters start in the Conecuh National Forest of Southern Alabama and enter Florida in Okaloosa County. The river flows from Okaloosa County through Santa Rosa County to Blackwater Bay, an arm of Pensacola Bay. The Blackwater’s sandy bottom, white beaches and large sandbars contrast with the tannic water that gives the river its name.
Access to the lower river is provided by boat ramps in Milton (Carpenters Park north of downtown Milton, just off Highway 191, and Russell Harbor Park, just north of Highway 90, on the east side of the river opposite downtown Milton), and in Bagdad (improved landing east of downtown Bagdad, off Highway 191).
With water temperature in the river getting below 60 degrees Fahrenheit, the striped bass bite is hot for big stripers! These large predators spend the summer months up the river in cold water refuges found in creeks but leave to feast on the large schools of bait that enter the lower river this time of year. These giants of the creek are often seen by FWC biologists during their sport fish population sampling.
During the summer striped bass congregate in the cooler thermal refuges upriver. Cold weather makes these fish more accessible as they move to the lower river.
Anglers will have the best luck fishing a live menhaden or mullet on a fluorocarbon leader either under a large cork/balloon or free-lined. If this doesn’t work, try fishing a large swimbait in a white or mullet pattern or large curly-tailed soft plastic on a jig head with a good quality hook. The outstanding striped and hybrid bass fishery on the Blackwater River is a result of long-term stocking done annually by the Florida Wildlife Commission.
The striped bass, like this specimen documented by FWC biologists, offers Florida anglers one of the State’s largest and most exciting freshwater targets.
