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The fish camp is typically full of anglers nervous to get out on Orange Lake this time of year. In the good years, Orange Lake is a thriving 13,000-acre haven well-known for its largemouth bass and excellent duck hunting.
But this isn’t a good year.
Spotty rainfall has triggered an epic drawdown, reducing the lake size by more than half and putting a financial squeeze on bait shops, restaurants and fish camps that depend on the business that anglers and hunters bring to the area.
Heagy Burry Park boat ramp is one of the few places boaters can place in and still get to what’s left of the lake. There’s a dredged canal that cuts through weeds and grass, which are now visible for hundreds of yards off shore.
It isn’t the first time Orange Lake has virtually disappeared. In 1956 and again in 1998, the lake was reduced to a wet mudhole.
The 1998 event was caused by a drought that reduced the lake to a record-low 48.35 feet above sea level by 2001, experts say. the lake made a comeback for a few years, reaching 58.4 feet in November 2004 before beginning another long, painful drop.
In the seven years since it peaked, Orange Lake has dropped by nearly 9 feet, to 49.64. it has receded 2 feet since may alone.
The drop prompted at least four bass tournaments to go to Lake Hernando.
“I have no business when there’s no water in the lake,” Colwell said Thursday. “It is as simple as that.”
Richard Smiley, 56, of Archer, an avid duck hunter and fisherman who often visits Orange Lake, said on Wednesday he decided to hunt in Bradford County because of Orange Lake’s shrinking waters.
“It has been a gradual drop,” he said of the lake level.
The recent drop has been much slower than it was in 2001 when visitors to Heagy Burry Park could watch lake water drain down a sinkhole just offshore.
The sinkhole near the boat ramp constantly drains the lake, even when the lake is at its fullest, experts say. the draining is much more noticeable when Orange Lake is so empty.
When there’s ample rainfall, the aquifer is full and keeps pressure on the bottom of the sinkhole, reducing the flow out of the lake. When less rain falls, there is less water in the aquifer and the sinkhole drains quicker.
Hank Largin, a St. Johns River Water Management District spokesman, said Orange Lake is just one of many area water bodies that are nearing record lows. Lochloosa Lake also is at its all-time low point.
While many residents blame the low lake levels on water bottling companies, water diversion and development, water management officials say the weather is the sole culprit.
“We feel like it is a rainfall issue,” Largin said.
And now state officials worry about the impact on wildlife.
“We have been expecting a large fish kill there,” said Karen Parker, a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokeswoman. “We feel like it could happen any time.”
Brian Hilton, a Wildlife Commission biologist, believes a fish kill is imminent because fish succumb to rapidly changing water temperature, reduced oxygen and algae blooms when lake levels get low.
Eric Nagid, another Wildlife Commission biologist, said rainfall could head off a major fish kill, but.
“It’s not a pretty picture there right now,” Nagid said.
Despite its up-and-down history, Orange Lake has been an angler’s paradise for decades.
In 1954, a fisherman snatched a 21-pound, 8-ounce bass from the shallow waters of Orange Lake. the unknown angler scooped it up without a rod and reel, so the catch didn’t make the official record book.
The tale appeared in March 1975 in a Sarasota Journal outdoors column by Breard Snellings titled: “Is that Whopper A Record?”
But two years after that catch, the sinkhole opened up near Heagy Burry Park, reducing the 13,000-acre lake to about one-third of its size.
George Roberts, 82, remembered walking down to the area and looking at the sinkhole, which was more than 100 feet deep and growing.
“I was standing right here when they used a crane to drop crushed cars down in there,” Roberts recalled on Wednesday. “They even used a school bus and boulders. I watched them do it.”
Roberts had just returned home from the Korean War. several years later, the lake came back. it remained large and vibrant for four decades until the 1998 drought began, leading to the 2001 record low.
Gary Walker, 64, moved to Orange Lake in 2004 just after the lake had rebounded. He is shocked to see how quick the lake level has fallen over the last two years, especially since may.
He said the lake began dropping quicker a year ago when Cross Creek dried up. Cross Creek connects Orange Lake with Lochloosa Lake, which is typically about 6,000 acres. those lakes are among 13 major water bodies and notable creeks that make up the 600-square-mile Orange Creek Basin.
Walker believes too much water is being pumped out of the aquifer for drinking water.
“I would say that (drinking water pumping) is not helping, either,” Walker said.
Colwell said in the 30 years she has operated the McIntosh Fish Camp, there has been many political squabbles over the lake. all of Orange Lake is in Alachua County, while its southern shore is in Marion County.
In 1994, the St. Johns River Water Management District settled a dispute about water flowing from Newnan’s Lake and diverted to Orange Lake. Orange Lake fish camp owners wanted all of the water. Opponents wanted all of the flow for Paynes Prairie. the water management district compromised by reserving about half of the Newnan’s Lake flow for each location.
Contact Joe Callahan at 867-4113 or . Follow him on Twitter at JoeOcalaNews.
