Recently a concerned individual who I had never seen on or near the Ocklawaha River -- or who I had never even heard of -- before 2016, challenged me with this question, "And by the way, what organization ever ordained that you should have the title of 'Ocklawaha Man'?" Well, I reckon that I was appointed as the "Ocklawahaman" while bass fishing from a canoe when I was actually "in-country" on the Ocklawaha River. Not originally by an organization located away from the Ocklawaha River corridor.

Paul Nosca was aka "Ocklawahaman" at least as early as the beginning of 2005.

I was canoeing and fishing at the junction of the Silver River and the Ocklawaha River when I sort-of overheard 2 guys in a powerboat questioning each other about something. One seemed to say, "We're on the Ocklawaha not the Silver River." To which his buddy scornfully replied, "NO, that's the OCKLAWAHA MAN!" I figured that he was pointing at me. And I liked the sound of it.

I checked my logs and discovered that this event with these boaters actually happened on Thursday 2004-04-22. My friend Mr. Keith and I were camped at Butterbutt Landing and I had paddled up to the Silver River junction (and floated back) that Thursday. I caught 10 largemouth bass (up to 16"), 12 bream, and 1 chain pickerel during the day's mission, using a Rapala plug & a buzzbait. We had applied for a permit from FDEP to drive in to Butterbutt and camp for 2 nights -- at that time there was a fenced access road with a combination padlock on the gate. That was the only time that I ever got to drive in to Butterbutt Landing. How many others of you were ever able to drive in to Butterbutt Landing once the state obtained the property?

Microsoft discovered no other "Ocklawahaman" when they approved my January 2005 email-related request.

I have documents from 2012 that show that Earthjustice, Florida Defenders of the Environment, Florida Wildlife Federation, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission all recognized me as "Ocklawahaman" -- my Florida manatee sightings-along-the-Ocklawaha-River data was used in the Earthjustice legal papers of 2012.

There probably are very few living individuals that have as much "in-country" actual experience in the entire Ocklawaha River basin -- including its "back country" -- as "Ocklawahaman" Paul Nosca. I started my explorations of it -- mostly for hunting-fishing purposes -- in 1973.

The back yard of my GREEN SWAMP homestead (Section 20) in the mid-1970's was just W of the land sections (21 and 22) that contained Florida's Eastern Continental Divide: Where the extreme NE headwaters of the Withlacoochee River basin (flows into the Gulf of Mexico) were separated by a bit of GREEN SWAMP high ground (N of CR-474 in Lake County) from the extreme SW headwaters of the Ocklawaha River basin (flows into the St. Johns River and then the Atlantic Ocean).

"Ocklawahaman" has some "in-country" experience at the extreme SE headwaters of the Ocklawaha River basin: Lake Apopka and atop 312-foot elevation Sugarloaf Mountain. I've been afloat on Lake Harris, Lake Griffin, and Haynes Creek above Moss Bluff Lock & Dam along with nearby Lake Weir (marginally part of the Ocklawaha River basin). I've seen at least part of all the "Dead River"s that I know of in the Ocklawaha River basin: 5 of them. From the Dead River upstream of Sharpes Ferry all the way down to the St. Johns River, I've canoed all of the mainstream Ocklawaha River plus Silver River and Rodman Reservoir. From the Ocklawaha River I have canoed Eaton Creek to Mud (aka Scrub) Lake -- try that sometime. The wild back-country side-creeks (e.g., Strouds, Turkey, Cedar, Teuton, and Owl plus the Dead River) of the middle Ocklawaha River (between the SR-40 and CR-316 bridges) have seen me in my canoe. "Ocklawahaman" has paddled Orange, Deep, and Sweetwater Creeks above Rodman Dam. And I've done the many side-creeks below Rodman Dam such as House and Bear Creeks plus the Dead River there.

When these "organizations" ordain another "Ocklawahaman" please let me show him "man-to-man" the back-country jungles in the floodplain swamp to the E or the W of the Ocklawaha River mainstream channel between the SR-40 and the CR-316 bridges. We'll see if he'll ever want a "rematch!"