xaenura) and two designated rare species, the goldstripe darter (Etheostoma parvipinne) and redeye chub (Notropis harperi). The Ocmulgee River is popular with anglers for its excellent fishing, particularly for redbreast sunfish, bluegill, redear sunfish, largemouth bass, black crappie, channel catfish, and flathead catfish. The world record for largest recorded catch of a largemouth bass was achieved in 1932 in Montgomery Lake, an oxbow lake off the Ocmulgee River in Telfair County. The record-setting fish, caught by farmer George Washington Perry, weighed 22 pounds, 4 ounces. The International Game Fish Association officially declared the world record for largemouth bass tied in 2010, following Manabu Kurita's catch (in July 2009) of a 22 pound, 4 ounce largemouth taken from Lake Biwa in Japan. There are some fifteen invasive species of fish which inhabit the river basin. According to a Georgia Department of Natural Resources report, "many of these species are well-established and are detrimental to native fish populations. The fifteen invasives are threadfin shad (Dorosoma petenense), goldfish (Carassius auratus), grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella), blacktail shiner (Cyprinella venusta); common carp (Cyprinus carpio); flathead catfish (Pylodictis olivaris); white bass (Morone chrysops); morone hybrids (Morone sp.); green sunfish (Lepomis cyanellus); longear sunfish (Lepomis megalotis); Lepomis hybrids (Lepomis sp.); shoal bass (Micropterus cataractae); spotted bass (Micropterus punctulatus); white crappie (Pomoxis annularis); and yellow perch (Perca flavescens). History Archeological evidence shows that Native Americans first inhabited the Ocmulgee basin about 10,000 to 15,000 years ago (see settlement of the Americas). Scraping tools and flint spearpoints from nomadic Paleoindians hunters have been discovered in the Ocmulgee floodplain. In the Archaic period (c. 8000-1000 BCE) which followed, hunter-gatherers in Ocmulgee basin used fiber-tempered pottery and stone tools. During the Woodland period (c. 1000 BCE-900 CE), there were various villages in the area, evidenced by earthen mounds and pottery sherds. There is evidence that the Mississippian culture reached the Ocmulgee basin by 900 CE; according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, "on the Macon plateau and in the nearby Ocmulgee bottomlands, stretches of farmsteads and gardens constructed around elaborate ceremonial mounds are the most prominent evidence of this early Mississippian influence." These areas are now part of the Ocmulgee National Monument, a National Park Service-administered protected area established in 1936. Europeans first explored the Ocmulgee basin in 1540, during the expedition of the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto and his party, who visited the late Mississippian chiefdom of Ichisi, now identified