Dinner by Bow and Arrow from Lake Okeechobee
25 May 20173:36 PM
A whitish-colored blob with bulging eyes hovered stock-still in Lake Okeechobee’s shallow Moonshine Bay, illuminated by Captain Charles “Skeeter” Holland’s headlamp. “Okay,” …
Tag: Lake Okeechobee
Okeechobee: Hunters’ Paradise
30 Mar 20178:19 AM
A dwindling number of regions in fast-growing Florida have the vast open stretches of pasture, forest, prairie and swamp of Okeechobee in the Sunshine State’s heartland. Though dedicated mostly …
Big Sacks at the Big O Expected by Bassmaster Elites
16 Feb 201711:52 AM
The last time Lake Okeechobee hosted a Bassmaster Elite series tournament was in 2012 when California pro Ish Monroe weighed 108 pounds, five ounces of largemouth bass in four days– the fifth largest …
Fun Up the Creek With a Paddle
15 Jan 20165:04 PM
By Sue Cocking, Guy Harvey Outpost staff writer scocking@guyharveyoutpost.com [Palmdale, FL–] A paddler would be hard-pressed to find a more scenic, tranquil waterway in South Florida to explore …
Go RV-ing on the Lake O
12 Jan 20163:29 PM
By Sue Cocking, Guy Harvey Outpost staff writer scocking@guyharveyoutpost.com [Okeechobee, FL.–] About 9 million people in the U.S. own recreational vehicles– motorhomes, travel trailers, …
Wayne Nelson: An Everglades Warrior Lays Down His Shield
11 May 20124:21 PM
The following editorial about Everglades activist Wayne Nelson was posted to the blog “Eye on Miami” after Nelson’s death last week. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorial …
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![](mailto:?subject=Okeechobee: Hunters’ Paradise&body=A dwindling number of regions in fast-growing Florida have the vast open stretches of pasture, forest, prairie and swamp of Okeechobee in the Sunshine State's heartland. Though dedicated mostly to agriculture, those thousands of acres of undeveloped land represent Shangri-La to the outdoors enthusiast-- a haven for wild hogs, deer, turkey, alligator, ducks, quail, and other game.
A mandatory vacation stop for increasing numbers of hunting tourists is Little Lake Lodge-- a remote camp located about a half-hour's drive north of Lake Okeechobee operated by outfitter Bob Hayes. It is highly possible here on the lodge's carefully-managed acreage to bag a wild hog and a trophy Osceola turkey on the same day. I know this because I was here a couple weeks ago when it happened.
Well before dawn that morning, Hayes had escorted Tim and his nine-year-old son Hunter-- both of Chapel Hill, N.C.-- to a blind adjacent to a gobbler travel route in a nearby pasture that the guide had discovered during pre-season scouting.
While Hunter sighted his 20-gauge and the three listened to the woods' melodic waking sounds, Hunter's mom Julia and I boarded a swamp buggy back in camp with hog hunter Jesse of Rhode Island, his wife Elle and their guide, Logan.
Jesse, a lifelong hunter, wanted to celebrate his 30th birthday by harvesting his first wild hog which he hoped to turn into pork tenderloin, bacon and sausage for the freezer. Unlike Jesse's native New England where there are no hog hunting opportunities, Florida is riddled with the animals. Descendants of livestock brought here in the holds of Spanish galleons in the 16th century, the wild porkers are considered a nuisance by farmers and ranchers because they tear up pastures and destroy crops in their insatiable rooting for food. They are also very prolific.
"One hog will breed once every two months and have five to six pigs each time," said Logan. "They are multiplying faster than we can shoot them."
The five of us bumped along in the swamp buggy on a rutted dirt path into a pasture and Jesse loaded his rifle.
"Take your best opportunity," Logan told the hunter.
Good thing Jesse was ready because about ten minutes into the ride, we all spotted a black hog trotting along a fence line about 100 yards away. Logan gunned the engine to close the distance but, despite the noisy pursuit, the animal for some reason began running toward the buggy.
Jesse aimed and fired, dropping his quarry in its tracks: a sow about 150 pounds.
"I love hunting," Jesse said. "A lot of meat and you don't have to go shopping."
<a href="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/buggy.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-4658" src="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/buggy.jpg" alt="" width="2560" height="1920" /></a>
After posing for pictures with his prize, Jesse and Logan loaded it onto the buggy and we headed back to camp where Logan would dress it.
Jesse seemed not quite able to believe the brevity of his hunt.
"I'm used to sitting in a tree stand and not seeing anything for days on end," he said.
Julia kept shooting anxious glances toward the camp's entrance gate. She had tried texting her husband and son to check the progress of the turkey hunt but had heard nothing.
Julia explained that this wasn't just ANY turkey hunt: the family has been spending all their vacation time for months to help Hunter accomplish his dream of a wild turkey grand slam-- bagging all four U.S. subspecies in a single year. The youngster, who's been involved in the sport since he was a pre-kindergartener, had so far taken two of the four: the eastern and the Rio Grande. The family was here to check off the Osceola-- found only in Florida-- and would then head to Nebraska to complete the slam with a Merriam.
A little while after we bade goodbye to a smiling Jesse and Elle, Hayes' pickup pulled up to the lodge and Julia rushed over to greet the party.
At first Hayes and his clients acted like they were disappointed, but then they began to smirk as Hayes opened a large cooler to reveal a hefty gobbler with at least a 12-inch beard-- a trophy by any measure.
"Oh Hunter, I'm SO glad!" Julia said, hugging her son.
Recounting the hunt, Hayes said they never had to use any calling devices to summon the bird. It just ambled by the blind on a well-worn travel route, and Hunter shot it from 20 yards.
The family drove back home that afternoon, planning to get the Osceola mounted and confident of completing their nationwide quest.
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Little Lake Lodge has no more openings for the 2017 spring gobbler season, but hunters are invited to reserve for next year. There are plenty of hog hunting slots open now. Call 954-448-0015. https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/okeechobee-hunters-paradise/){kind=link}
![](mailto:?subject=Fun Up the Creek With a Paddle&body=<img class=" size-medium wp-image-3250 alignleft" src="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/fisheatingcreek.jpg?w=300" alt="FisheatingCreek" width="300" height="225" />By Sue Cocking, Guy Harvey Outpost staff writer
scocking@guyharveyoutpost.com
[Palmdale, FL--] A paddler would be hard-pressed to find a more scenic, tranquil waterway in South Florida to explore than Fisheating Creek. Unlike many in the region, its water levels are not manipulated by humans, but dependent entirely on rainfall. No buildings line its banks except for the small office at the Fisheating Creek Outpost campground in tiny Palmdale. Mostly, it's just you in your kayak or canoe-- maybe an occasional hunter passing by in a john boat-- and gators, birds and frogs for miles around.
Fisheating Creek-- derived from a Native American phrase for " the creek where fish are eaten"--lives up to its name. It's loaded with bass, bluegill, and bream. Flowing gently south and east from rural Highlands County for about 50 miles to Lake Okeechobee, the creek is a narrow, shady, shallow haven for wildlife. If you are quiet, you might spy deer, wild turkey, and hogs as you glide by. The state of Florida controls the creek corridor, maintaining public access while the upland regions are mostly cattle pastures owned by the agribusiness giant Lykes Bros.
I enjoyed a nearly effortless seven-mile paddle down the creek at year's end, buoyed by unseasonably high water levels from recent rains that required no wading nor dragging my kayak over shallow sandbars. Sunny, breezy weather tamped down annoying insects and made for a comfortable three-hour float downstream.
An Outpost shuttle driver transported my kayak and me to the put-in site popular with day-trippers called Burnt Bridge. Had I desired a longer trip, I could have been shuttled further north to Ingram's Crossing-- a 16-mile, full-day or overnight excursion. Using the Outpost shuttle is the only way to access the creek upstream from the campground because you have to pass through several locked gates on Lykes property to get there.
Decades ago, paddling almost the entire length of the creek to its terminus in Lake Okeechobee was possible, but not today. The shuttle driver told me it is paddle-able for about 45 minutes south of the campground to a spot called Rock Lake. Beyond Rock Lake, he said, the stream is too choked with vegetation to continue.
No matter. I had plenty of spectacular natural scenery and wildlife to occupy me for my entire trip. I glided through towering cypress forest with many boughs still bright green despite the winter season. Their knobby knee roots lined the creek banks like columns of small soldiers. Overhead, crows, herons and ibis called, squawked, and grunted as I floated by.
I think I had only been underway for about 20 minutes when I came upon my first gator-- a five-footer sunning itself on a sandbar. I slowed down, and barely was able to snap off a photo before it slid into the creek and disappeared. Over the next three hours or so, I passed another 14 of the reptiles, one of them a jowly monster that looked to be about ten feet long. Without exception, they either ignored me or departed quickly at my approach. For some reason, I didn't see any snakes or turtles.
Since it was a weekday, watercraft traffic was light. I came upon exactly one small motorboat and a party of three kayaks.
"You're the first person we've seen for days!" joked one of the paddlers.
It is theoretically possible to get lost on Fisheating Creek, but you would have to try really hard. The route is marked with small directional signs and blue blazes on the trees. If you ever find yourself between markers, uncertain how to proceed, simply go with the flow-- following the strongest line of current downstream.
I stopped for lunch at a scenic sand spit dubbed Nude Beach on my trail map. It was deserted; no naked people anywhere around. However, as I munched on chicken tenders, I did spy two tail drags in the sand that doubtless were made by nude alligators.
Fish splashed and birds conducted me from the tree canopy as I continued downstream. Then I came upon a startling sight: a large, gray, roundish structure about six feet tall attached to a tree on the left bank. Peering closer, I saw that it was a really big wasp nest! I snapped a photo and pushed quickly away. Not long after that, I arrived back at the campground.
What a fun morning it had been. Beautiful scenery, non-threatening wildlife and no bug bites. I'll have to do the long version next time.
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Sue Cocking chronicles the Guy Harvey Outpost travel and adventure experience in regular blog posts on GuyHarveyOutpostNews.com/. For 21 years, Cocking covered the full spectrum of outdoors adventure opportunities in South Florida and beyond for the Miami Herald, including fishing, diving, hunting, paddling camping, sailing and powerboat racing. She is a certified scuba diver and holder of an IGFA women's world fly fishing record for a 29-pound permit.
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Share your photos, videos and experiences with Guy Harvey Outpost by hash tagging #OutpostAttitude to all of your social media posts. https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/fun-up-the-creek-with-a-paddle-2/){kind=link}
![](mailto:?subject=Go RV-ing on the Lake O&body=<img class=" size-medium wp-image-3241 alignleft" src="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/lakeo3.jpg?w=300" alt="LakeO3" width="300" height="225" />By Sue Cocking, Guy Harvey Outpost staff writer
scocking@guyharveyoutpost.com
[Okeechobee, FL.--] About 9 million people in the U.S. own recreational vehicles-- motorhomes, travel trailers, truck campers, 'toy haulers', and others. And a lot of them make their way to Florida's Heartland -- Lake Okeechobee.
You can hardly skip a pebble on the lake's north end without hitting an RV park. They start filling up around Christmas time and stay pretty full through the end of March. That's because the appeal of the Big O region is many-faceted, extending way beyond the pleasant winter weather, according to RVers.
"A lot of activities at most of the campgrounds," said Michel Goulet of Quebec, Canada who plays guitar and accordion and bicycles with wife Martine.
The couple towed their 39-foot "5th wheel" RV with a pickup for three days from Canada to Okeechobee in mid December, planning to stay for several months. They could afford a hotel or a rental house, but prefer the RV lifestyle.
"It's like being at home," Michel said. "You have a little space."
Likewise for fellow Canadians John Duchesne and wife Mitch from Ontario. The couple--now retired-- began tent camping together nearly 40 years ago, then bought pop-up camper trailers and now have a 33-foot 5th wheel. They've been traveling to Okeechobee every winter for six years.
"We RV'd on both sides of Florida -- the east coast and the west coast. We found all of it was way too busy for us-- expensive, crazy," John Duchesne said. "If you look around here, it has a small town atmosphere. People are friendly, traffic is low and it's cowboys. I don't have a country-western bone in my body, but this has character. We feel secure here."
The Duchesnes plan to stay for 4 1/2 months, attending potluck dinners with their campground neighbors, hitting golf balls and riding motorcycles. John enjoys bass fishing on the big lake, but doesn't have a boat. He hopes to meet some fellow anglers to wet a line this winter.
Another Ontario resident who we'll call "Joel", 82, is spending his second winter season in Okeechobee with his wife in their 38-foot Winnebago motorhome-- the couple's sixth RV. When they play golf or go shopping, they use the mid-size sedan they towed here.
"Basically the freedom, " the retired auto dealer said of his preference for the RV lifestyle. "Parking where you like. Having your own rig, your own bed every night is pretty nice."
Tommy Miller from North Carolina and his wife drove their 45-foot motorhome to Okeechobee to help set up his mother-in-law in her winter residence. They planned to spend a week, then head home and return in February. But Miller said he'd like to become a permanent RVer.
"I'm tired of owning real estate and mowing my lawn," he said.
RVers and other visitors will have another destination soon on Lake Okeechobee. Guy Harvey Outpost RV Resort and Marina is slated to open in spring 2017 at the site of the Okee-Tantie Campground and Marina. The project-- to be developed in conjunction with Elite Resorts-- calls for 125 RV pads, 70 rental cabins, a waterfront lodge, expanded marina, boat barn, swimming pool, restaurant, tiki bar, and tackle shop.
It will provide a dizzying array of activities-- or not. As one Michigan couple, who've been spending winters at the lake for years, put it: "We come down here for the sunshine and warm weather. We used to own a boat and fish in the lake. Now we just like to relax."
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Sue Cocking chronicles the Guy Harvey Outpost travel and adventure experience in regular blog posts on GuyHarveyOutpostNews.com/. For 21 years, Cocking covered the full spectrum of outdoors adventure opportunities in South Florida and beyond for the Miami Herald, including fishing, diving, hunting, paddling camping, sailing and powerboat racing. She is a certified scuba diver and holder of an IGFA women's world fly fishing record for a 29-pound permit.
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Share your photos, videos and experiences with Guy Harvey Outpost by hash tagging #OutpostAttitude to all of your social media posts. https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/go-rv-ing-on-the-big-o/){kind=link}
![](mailto:?subject=Wayne Nelson: An Everglades Warrior Lays Down His Shield&body=The following editorial about <a title="Everglades National Park web site" href="http://www.nps.gov/ever/index.htm" target="_blank">Everglades</a> activist Wayne Nelson was posted to the blog "<a title="Eye on Miami blog" href="http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Eye on Miami</a>" after Nelson's <a title="Wayne Nelson's Obituary" href="http://www.tributes.com/show/Wayne-L.-Nelson-93742562" target="_blank">death</a> last week. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorial contributions may be made to the <a title="GHOF web site" href="http://www.guyharveyoceanfoundation.org" target="_blank">Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation</a>, 10408 West SR 84, Suite 104, Davie, FL 33324.
<a href="http://guyharvey.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/wayne.jpg"><img title="Wayne Nelson Photo courtesy of the Sun-Sentinel)" src="http://guyharvey.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/wayne.jpg" alt="" width="428" height="286" /></a>
By gimleteye:
When Wayne Nelson, 88, died this week, the liquid heart of Florida - <a title="About Lake Okeechobee" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Okeechobee" target="_blank">Lake Okeechobeee</a> - lost a fierce and knowledgeable advocate. Wayne was of a generation of modern-day Everglades activists; including, recently, the late Johnie Jones and his wife, Mariana, who were young in the 1940's and 1950's and experienced the Everglades firing on all cylinders.
Wayne was Korea War veteran and a retired air conditioning contractor whose advocacy for Lake Okeechobee led <a title="Nelson's Supreme Court Case" href="http://www.eswr.com/docs/courts/ussc/01-196/FOEpetition.pdf" target="_blank">all the way to the US Supreme Court</a>. He began fishing in West Palm Beach and Lake Okeechobee in the 1960's. He organized one of the first bass fishing clubs in Florida and was the organizer of the small group, Fishermen Against the Destruction of the Environment (FADE) that was a co-plaintiff in federal Clean Water Act litigation challenging the South Florida Water Management District and Big Sugar. Wayne was at the first meeting of the Everglades Coalition at Port of the Islands in 1984 and was once a member of the board of <a title="Friends of the Everglades web site" href="http://everglades.org" target="_blank">Friends of the Everglades</a> <> (of which I am now president).
Friends of the Everglades, Nelson's FADE, and other conservation groups brought citizen suits under the Clean Water Act against the US Environmental Protection Agency to require the South Florida Water Management District to obtain permits in order to discharge polluted canal water into Lake Okeechobee. (FADE and Friends of the Everglades have been involved in several federal CWA lawsuits, with important implications for the nation's water policies, not just the Everglades.)
This practice is known as "back-pumping" and its purpose is to make sure that the 700,000 acres of the Everglades Agricultural Area -- dominated by Big Sugar-- are never too wet in rainy season. Back-pumping controls water levels on sugar land and through the extensive canal system, forcing water uphill as it were, against gravity, into Lake Okeechobee.
At the same time, the water management practices that deliver immense benefits and profits to sugar barons like the billionaire Fanjuls also deprive the natural system of the rainfall cycle that nourished the Everglades and Florida Bay with clean, fresh water at the right time of year.
He launched his boat in Belle Glade and would fish through the weekend. "To get to the Lake," Nelson testified in a Friends' affidavit filed with federal court in 2011, "you have to cross the rim canal and enter the Lake through one of the cuts. I would typically see the pumping while I was going out to fish or coming back in from fishing and was traveling in the rim canal to the boat ramp. You can see the turbulence and tinged color of pumped water all the way across the rim canal and into the Lake."
Wayne Nelson was a fierce supporter of grass roots environmentalism. His friend, Jim Harvey, says, "If people were classified like naval ships, Wayne Nelson would be the Warrior Class. He never faltered to say it like he saw it. He believed in watching the ass not the lips to ascertain where things were going. You didn't go fishing with Wayne. He went, listening to him. He loved Lake Okeechobee and held no quarter or gave no quarter when it came to saving the Lake."
Wayne didn't seek out the spotlight. He could be cantankerous and prickly. But anyone who loved the Everglades, fought battles against industry pressure, endured endless delays by government, obfuscation, and false declarations of progress while the liquid heart of Florida turned into a sewer would be spewing comets and fury at the misdirection.
"Water transfers of polluted, nutrient-rich water to Lake Okeechobee results in increased nutrient pollution in the Everglades system,"
Nelson said in his affidavit. "Nutrient pollution is one of the biggest threats to the Everglades today. Nitrogen and phosphorous from the canal waters feeds algae growth that chokes out sea grasses and other native plants. Algae also depletes oxygen, resulting in "dead zones" below the the surface where few native Everglades species survive. Invasive flora and fauna are increasingly taking over the niches created by the degredation of the water quality in the Everglades."
It has been nearly forty years since the historic agreement between the federal government and state of Florida to end the pollution of the Everglades, and its results keep a permanent incumbency in place; from local county commissions, to the state legislature -- that still refuses to hold Big Sugar accountable for the costs of its pollution and won't even impose the most rudimentary system to honestly account for polluting farming practices -- to Congress and the White House.
"We don`t need any more studies of Lake Okeechobee or the Everglades,"
Nelson told the Sun Sentinel in 1988. "We know what the problems are and we know what the solutions are. We need action. The farmers are hiding behind (government agencies they control)." ("Lake Okeechobee Scientific Group Back In Business", Orlando Sentinel, July 14, 1988)
Wayne knew that the environmental warriors were badly outmatched by the Great Destroyers, and he understood the clock was ticking. He didn't stand for niceties; he wanted environmentalists to do more and he had no tolerance for waving banners. He strongly believed that grass roots organizations were the key. Jim Harvey says, "He was pure passion and "old school" on freedom of speech. He hated equivocation and figured political correctness was being accurate. Period. He was in the truest sense, an egalitarian warrior with little regard for large national environmental groups that danced around to keep the Everglades ball in play."
Wayne Nelson just wanted to go fishing, and it made him angry that pollution deprived him, Florida and the nation of that opportunity.
Nelson told the Sun Sentinel in 1990: "Reagan missed the boat when he called Russia the Evil Empire". Thrusting a finger toward the sugar cane farms ringing Lake Okeechobee, he said, "I'll tell you where the goddamn Evil Empire is... it's out there!" (A Sweet Deal Has Become The Source Of A Bitter Poison, The Sugar Dynasty, Sept. 16, 1990) And it still is. https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wayne-nelson-an-everglades-warrior-lays-down-his-shield/){kind=link}
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