The Wacissa River is not a place where you concentrate on fishing and just give the scenery a once over when things are slow. Instead, it's a place so beautiful and so alive that it's hard to stay focused on the task at hand-namely dropping a fly in just the right spot to entice a lurking Suwannee bass.

Tom Logan and I were facing that dilemma as we drifted in a small canoe over one of the many springs that make up the headwaters of the Wacissa. There was a light mist rising from the water, and the low, morning sun was casting a halo of yellow light around every leaf and branch of the hardwoods and moss-draped cypress trees towering above the river bank. The whoosh of our fly rods cutting through the damp air was almost drowned out by the singing, chattering, splashing and buzzing of wildlife around us. 

We watched as a flock of yellowlegs glided down to the water, kiting their wings in unison and slowing to a soft landing on a thick patch of hydrilla. A few yards away a little blue heron walked gingerly through a stand of lily pads, tilting its head back and forth to find a better angle for seeing beneath the surface. Along the shore, a green heron stood poised to strike from the vantage point of a small log, while nearby a limpkin picked its way through a stand of cypress knees, possibly searching for a gourmet meal of apple snails.

Beneath our canoe, in the clear spring water we could see soft-shell turtles sitting serenely on the bottom, bowfins cruising lazily against the current, and mullet-big mullet-grazing on algae clinging to the waving eelgrass. We could even see an occasional Suwannee bass holding position in openings in the thick vegetation and around the many spring outpourings we passed over.

Suwannee bass (Micropterus notius), which are in the same genus as largemouth bass, are unique to only a handful of rivers in North Florida including the Suwannee, Santa Fe, Ichetucknee, St. Marks, Wakulla and Ochlockonee. However, they don't grow anywhere near as large as their more famous cousins, seldom reaching more than 10 or 12 inches in length or weighing more than a pound or two. The Florida record is 3.89 pounds.

Many references, including Vic Dunaway's Sport Fish of Florida, suggest that the species is aggressive and tougher for its size than the largemouth bass. I found that to be very true, but wondered if it's because we may be comparing a wizened, adult 12-inch Suwannee bass to a yearling largemouth bass.

No question, however, this is a species that lends itself to fly fishing. Like catching brook trout in a small northern stream, the challenge is found in making the perfect cast to just the right spot, and tricking a wary fish living in water so clear you can read heads or tails on a dime lying on the bottom.

We started fishing the minute we pushed off into the river's headwaters. The area just downstream of the ramp is actually one of the best places to catch Suwannee bass because of a series of small fish-attracting potholes and spring vents in the limestone bottom. And just to prove the point, Tom caught two bass before we had gone 50 feet. I caught my first one about an hour later, and what a joy it was to finally convince the river to give up a little piece of itself for me to appreciate for a moment. Plus, there's the added pleasure of catching a new species on a fly rod.

Even up close it's difficult to distinguish the difference between a Suwannee bass and Florida's other black bass species. Fishing with a wildlife biologist helps. "The Suwannee has a deeper body and a smaller mouth. The mandible (jaw) doesn't extend past the eye, on a largemouth it extends well beyond the eye," explained Tom, who is the endangered species coordinator for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

While we drifted slowly with the current, guided only by the occasional paddle stroke, we worked at dropping our flies in open holes and narrow channels in the vegetation, and into pockets formed by downed trees and brush along the shoreline. Or I should say, that's what I was doing. Tom, the far better fly caster and undoubtedly the local Suwannee bass fishing expert, was taking a far more refined approach by placing his fly exactly at the down-current edge of the holes and just inside the edge of the vegetation in the small channels. (He was also catching more fish.)

As he explained, the bass tend to lie facing the current on the downstream side of holes in the vegetation. A fly that lands three feet away, or is preceded by a fly line slapping the water across the opening isn't going to catch many fish.

Tom prefers traditional or historic wet fly patterns, which he feels are very effective at mimicking natural foods. We were both using a fly he has developed called, simply enough, the Wacissa. It's a light-colored streamer made of Coq-de-Leon feathers. It has a pair of white feathers tied back-to-back to form a wing, and a light-brown hackle at the head to help it stand out a little in the clear water. It also has a flat gold tinsel body ribbed with oval tinsel.

Just for fun, and during a discussion about identifying food preferences for different species, Tom tied on a smaller wet fly, and immediately stopped catching Suwannee bass and started catching stumpknockers. I thought it was a pretty good trick, but he explained that by switching from a baitfish pattern to an insect pattern he had effectively switched from catching a predatory species like a bass, to a mostly insect-feeding species, like a stumpknocker.

Tom fishes with, and recommends, either a 3- or 4-weight rod. "I like the way they cast and the way the smaller fish feel as you're catching them," he says.