Tag: spring

February, 2024

Like the Choctawatchee River, Econfina Creek is a hotspot for springs in the panhandle. Many of those springs, alas, are on private land, but fortunately, there are some springs accessible from public land.

The SR 20 canoe launch. I travel light.

Econfina Creek flows into Deerpoint Lake just north of Panama City. Although the area to the west looks a little like agricultural land, it is actually part of the Econfina Creek Water Management Area. It felt much more natural on the ground than it appears in the Google Earth image. It was a lovely drive over.

A few of the many springs on Econfina Creek.

During the planning stages of this project, I was told that the area was completely transformed by the loss of large riparian trees during Hurricane Idalia. Some large trees made through the storm, but clearly the area had been ravaged.

A Google Earth image from 40 m with some downed trees still visible (top), a photo from the river showing trees stripped of most or all of their branches (middle), and some trees that made it through the storm (bottom).

The creek was flowing very brown, turbid, and fast, so I flew down to the springs. Once there, though, the spring water was clear. Despite being the southernmost of the springs that I visited that day, I found Gainer #2 first. Gainer #2 Spring comes from a small cave in the pitted limestone wall along the edge of the river. The pressure from the spring water shot me backwards as I tried to photograph it.

The limestone banks of the river, just upstream of Gainer #2 Spring.

Gainer #2 Spring cave.

Not surprisingly, given the water flow, there were few fish to film. Next to the strong flow out of the cave, there was a little backwater area with a few shiners, but not much else. Fish aren’t stupid.

The cave and its outflow area (top) and the outflow area underwater (bottom). The pressure from the strong water flow from Bluff Spring blasted the sand clear of vegetation and detritus.

After Gainer #2 Spring, I paddled upstream a hundred meters or so into a little run to reach the Gainer #3 springs. Although the description of this system is Gainer #3, there were actually two springs up this run (and apparently, I missed a third), which formed a large pool with an island in the middle. The spring on the right side of the pool (facing upstream) was a large vent on the bottom and the spring on the left side of the pool came out of a cave in a limestone wall, like a smaller version of Gainer #2. The large vent on the bottom had been the real goal for the day because it is a first magnitude spring, discharging more than 150 cubic feet per second. I missed the spring coming out of the wall on my first visit, but I could not miss the main vent, which was blasting sand out in a plume. It was gorgeous.

Gainer #3 main vent blasting sand.

The caves that represent the other Gainer #3 vents (one on far left, another closer to middle, a third on right).

This system was much bigger than the Gainer #2 system and it supported a lot more fish, including some redear sunfish (Lepomis microlophus). I see this species often at Volusia Blue Spring, but I have recorded them only rarely on this survey of Florida western springs. I also recorded a warmouth sunfish (Lepomis gulosus), which I rarely see and is characterized by its large mouth and iridescent rays radiating back from the mouth on the opercula (gill covers). The bottom of the run was blanketed with a mixture of senescent and live algae, like so many other Florida springs.

Redear sunfish with the Gainer #3 vent in the background.

Bluegill sunfish (Lepomis macrochirus), largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides), and redear sunfish in the Gainer #3 run.

A slightly banged up warmouth sunfish underneath a bluegill near the cave vents that contribute to the Gainer #3 run.

In addition to shiners, sunfish, and bass, I also captured some bluefin killifish (Lucania goodei), Florida gar (Lepisosteus platyrhinchus), spotted sucker (Minytrema melanops), and a few exotic grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella). This spring was the only location where I filmed any exotic fish in the panhandle or Big Bend area of Florida.

Florida gar that I scared floating down the run (top) and a spotted sucker (bottom).

Grass carp moving off into the river (bottom).

Racing against the coming end of the day, I also ventured up the Gainer #1 run. This spring run was the longest of the three and much narrower than Gainer #3. However, like the main Gainer #3 vent, it also was shooting out sand, although at a lower volume.

Gainer vent #1C pumping out sand.

The fish that I recorded in Gainer #1C were similar to the two other Gainer springs in the group, although I did not see the grass carp in this shallower spring run. I captured on video mosquitofish, shiners, sunfish, bass, and, in one video, bluefin killifish (Lucania goodei) males showing off their colorful fins in a display of aggression. I also picked up a turtle that passed behind a spotted sunfish (Lepomis punctatus) and a largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) in one of the videos taken in the run. The turtle was probably a yellow-bellied slider (Trachemys scripta) according to Terry Farrell, Florida herp expert extraordinaire.

Male bluefin killifish showing aggression.

Spotted sunfish, largemouth bass, and turtle.

Bluff Spring

On my first trip to Econfina Creek, I completely missed Bluff Spring, which was just downstream from Gainer #2. It was substantially smaller than most of the Gainer springs and, although it also had water issuing from small caves, it also had water shooting from underneath a limestone wall. This flow produced a small pool alongside Econfina Creek, which was obvious once I was on top of it by the clear water. All but two of the fish that I recorded here were sunfish; the other two were largemouth bass.

One of the caves releasing spring water (top) and water shooting out from under the limestone wall (bottom).

It is interesting that the springs of Econfina Creek were clear when a) the springs of the lower Choctawatchee were not and b) the creek itself felt like it was running fast enough to be flooding. I have a lot to learn about the hydrology of the panhandle.

The clear springs of the Econfina (yellow) as opposed to the brown springs of the lower Choctawatchee (red).

There is a USGS publication that I regularly consult, called the Springs of Florida. It was originally published in the 1977 and it was updated in 2004. Along with lots of useful information about discharge and water quality from the 1960s, 1970s, and early 2000s, there are photos. I do not know when these photos were taken, but in these photos, the substrate of Gainer Springs is bare sand. In my photos and videos, the substrate is covered mostly in senescent and some live algae (the brown is senescent, dying or dead). In fact, in the Gainer vent #3 video, there is a little patch of the senescent algae that goes rolling down into the vent, exposing the sand below, after I apparently disturbed it with my paddle.

Alas, I can find no more current water quality data than what was reported in the Springs of Florida, but those data suggested that as of 2001, the nitrate concentrations were quite low (0.16-0.21 microg/L). I very much wonder what they are now. The temperature data that they reported (21.1-22.0 C) was similar to what I measured on my visit (21.7-22.0 C). Their reported dissolved oxygen (2.12-3.0 mg/L) was somewhat higher than my measurements (1.07 mg/L at the headspring of Gainer vent #1), which may be related to the senescent algae. Their conductivity, which is a measure of salts in the water, was low (82-142 microS/cm), as mine was (133-155 microS/cm). Clearly, these springs are not being tidally influenced by the Gulf, at least not in terms of salt.