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Kenansville Lake Fishing
If you look at a Google map, like the one below of the Stick Marsh/Farm 13, you will find Blue Cypress Lake right on the SW corner of the Stick Marsh. You will also find another big, rectangular lake on the NW corner. That's Kenansville Lake. Unfortunately, we can't easily get from one to the other. None are connected to any of the others. So, we have to drive all the way around to the Kenansville launch. It is a shallow flooded farm style fishery. Still has fence posts and barbed wire in some places. Depth in the fields are anywhere from 3-5 feet. Lots of drainage ditches criss-crossing the place. Far west side is all reeds, grass, and cypress trees. Some canals have submerged leaves, but they are not far under the water and in places to shallow to even cross. Others have grass and reeds all along the ridge. The lake has been known to have good crappie and bluegill supply. It has had a tremendous bass population also.
Kenansville Lake is a shallow 2,500. This area was cattle pasture prior to flooding in 1993. Interior levees are located at the north, center and south parts of the lake. A single lane concrete boat ramp is the only facility provided on the site. The town of Kenansville is the closest place to obtain gas, food and bait. Bank fishing is common along the access canal and north end of the lake for those willing to walk or ride a bicycle to those areas. All largemouth bass are protected by a special no harvest regulation.
Construction of the Kenansville Re-diversion Project by the St. Johns River Water Management District and the Army Corps of Engineers commenced this May. It consists of a large weir and flow-way constructed in the
levee east of the boat ramp and the plugging of the canal in the northeast
corner of the lake. The purpose is to provide hydrological separation
of Kenansville Lake from the C-40 canal draining Blue Cypress Lake. Kenansville
Lake will then drain into the marsh to the north, where vegetation will
extract much of the nutrient load known to exist in these waters. Construction
is expected to be completed in mid-June with plugging of the canal following
soon afterward. Anglers should be aware that they will no longer be able
to run from Blue Cypress Lake to Kenansville Lake.
This lake has been a fish factory with some of the finest crappie and
blue gill fishing in the entire Blue Cypress Conservation Area. As a
bass lake, December through February saw fishing at a level that would
compete with even the Stick Marsh.
View Kenansville Lake in a larger map
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