the Suwannee Bass prefers water around the 68°F thermal range and may be found down deeper than 10 feet in order to maintain this temperature range.

River Habitat

The Suwannee Bass is a river fish and is not found in deep water. They avoid lakes and reservoirs preferring the upstream areas of the Suwannee and its tributaries, the Santa Fe river and the Withlacoochee river.

The Suwannee is a wild river with slow to moderately fast flowing water. It traverses through high limestone banks, salt marshes and fast flowing areas with relatively shallow areas.

How Deep is the Suwannee river?

Like many bass, the Suwannee Bass prefers water around the 68°F thermal range and may be found down deeper than 10 feet in order to maintain this temperature range. We have had many questions asking us, "How deep is the Suwannee river." That answer is hard to answer as the depth varies along it’s length and through the various tributaries. While the average depth is three feet, it gets as deep as 23 feet closer to the mouth of the river. As such, most of the distribution that the Suwannee bass can be found in is usually ten feet deep or less.

Due to the number of freshwater spring in the Suwannee river, the temperature of the water is much cooler than it would normally be without springs which helps to moderate the water temperature.

Some have claimed to have caught Suwannee Bass in deeper waters of reservoirs in other states, however, these were accidentally mistaken to be Suwannee when they were other species such as the Spotted Bass or the Largemouth Bass or even the redeye bass.

Limited Distribution

The Suwannee Bass has the most restricted distribution of all the bass species and has not been introduced to any other lakes or reservoirs to this date. And, even if the Suwannee Bass were introduced to deep lakes and reservoirs, it is likely that they would be drawn to the same habitat they enjoy in rivers, seeking out the mouths of rivers and streams or falling water in shallow areas that has a silty bottom with sunken logs and rocks near the shore.

However, as this is pure speculation, we do not have any techniques for deep water and do not see the point to even speculate.