By Sue Cocking, Guy Harvey Outpost Travel Journalist scocking@guyharveyoutpost.com Cuba has a lionfish infestation just like every other island in the Caribbean, and if you are a certified scuba diver, …
Win a trip to the Guy Harvey Outpost Grand Opening on St. Pete Beach, FL!
7 Aug 20127:24 PM
Win a trip to the Guy Harvey Outpost Grand Opening on St. Pete Beach, FL! The trip package includes
- Two round trip tickets to Tampa International Airport, 30 minutes from Guy Harvey Outpost, a TradeWinds Beach Resort.
- 4 Day /3 Night stay at Guy Harvey Outpost, a TradeWinds Beach Resort in a spacious Gulf Front Suite with views of the Gulf of Mexico and the white sand beaches of St. Pete Beach.
- 36″ giclee print signed by Guy Harvey personally!
- Exclusive invitation to our Grand Opening event on September 12th to include Cocktail Reception, Dinner, Entertainment, and a Meet & Greet with Guy Harvey himself.
Visit the TradeWinds Island Resort Facebook Page for details and registration!
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![](mailto:?subject=Hunting Gators in the Heart of Florida!&body=<a href="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/gator.jpg"><img class="alignleft wp-image-2870 size-medium" src="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/gator.jpg?w=300" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a>
[Okeechobee, FL--] Cows bellow, a limpkin screams and distant lightning intermittently illuminates the nighttime sky as captain Bobby Stafford idles his aluminum skiff north on the Kissimmee River. Oblivious to the eerie atmosphere, Stafford and passengers Roger McCulloch and Butch Butler eagerly scan the tannic surface with binoculars and headlamps trying to catch a pair of ruby-red lights in their sights.
Sweeping the river ahead, bank to bank, Stafford suddenly spots what they're looking for.
"There's a big one!" he whispers excitedly to his companions. "My God, he's a stud. He's coming out of that creek we were in."
The alligator's red eyes, captured in the beam, are spaced a good distance apart not unlike the running lights on a small boat -- indicating he's probably ten feet or better.
This is just what McCulloch, a highway construction foreman from Ohio, has travelled so far to capture. An accomplished hunter, McCulloch has bagged literally dozens of gators with Stafford as his guide over the past ten years or so during Florida's annual statewide public gator hunt that runs from Aug. 15 through Nov. 1. McCulloch has mounted several of these trophies, but his supply of gator meat has run out. Scoring this target will fill his freezer.
Then Stafford says something that, to the uninitiated, might sound really weird.
"Maybe we ought to just drop a chicken," he says to the other men, who nod in agreement as if this is the most normal conversation in the world to be having on a desolate stretch of river in the middle of the night.
***********************
Unlike the depictions of gator hunting on the popular "Swamp People" television show, hunters chosen by lottery for Florida's annual reptile wrangle are not allowed to shoot gators with guns or snag them in the throat with baited treble hooks. Only certain approved methods are permitted to harvest the quota of two gators per person. One of them involves fishing with chickens, minus a hook.
Stafford retrieves a whole, raw, store-bought chicken from a five-gallon bucket with a length of coated cable attached to it. He fastens the end of the cable to a snap swivel tied to 200-pound-test braided line on his stout conventional fishing outfit. Inside the chicken, he has sewn a wooden dowel-- perfectly legal--that will hold the gator's jaws open if and when it devours the bait.
Stafford drops the chicken/bait in the water, puts the fishing reel in free-spool and motors slowly upriver until the boat is about 100 yards from the floating bait. He directs McCulloch to drop anchor and then shuts off the outboard.
"You just have to have patience and let 'em come to you," Stafford says.
The men wait and wait. Nothing happens. Finally, Stafford points the headlamp at the bait and spots the 'stud' gator far past it downriver. No other targets can be seen lurking nearby.
Stafford reels in the bait and the group decides to go looking for more prospects. They light up a small one in the middle of the river that freezes in the beam, but they agree to pass it up. Not long afterward, they spot a five-footer lurking in some reeds on the bank that has someone else's cable attached to it. They keep looking.
Several other small boats pass by during the night believed to be those of fellow hunters. No whoops and hollers of victory are heard, and only a few gators appear in their sights.
"Too many small ones. Too much boat traffic for this stretch of river," Stafford complains. Reluctantly, he turns the skiff toward the boat ramp, done for the night. He and McCulloch and Butler make plans to resume the hunt around 5:30 in the morning.
"If we can get a morning where there's not a lot of people, then we'll get it done," he declares. https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/hunting-gators-in-the-heart-of-florida/){kind=link}
![](mailto:?subject=Happy Flag Day!&body=<a href="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/7081.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1321" title=""Flying True" - Guy Harvey" src="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/7081.jpg" alt="" width="359" height="493" /></a> https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/happy-flag-day/){kind=link}
 to double black diamond (most difficult). Instead of a guide clipping your cables and demonstrating each element, you do everything yourself. If you have a problem or a question, just call out to a staffer for advice or --if you're really too scared to swing through the trees--someone will climb up and escort you down.
Even though I stuck to the green and yellow courses during my visit, I found the experience exhilarating and fun. I could understand why a 12-year-old from the neighborhood who the staff calls an unpaid intern visits here twice a week for his three-hour workout.
<a href="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Treehoppers3-e1492097028812.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-4675" src="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Treehoppers3-e1492097028812.jpg" alt="" width="3264" height="2448" /></a>
After airborne exercise, I headed back to Tarpon Springs-- stopping en route for a little refreshment at the Florida Estate Winery in Land O'Lakes, not far from TreeHoppers. It's a popular waypoint for many wannabe Tarzans and Janes.
For more information about TreeHoppers, visit <a href="http://www.treehoppers.com">www.treehoppers.com</a> or call 813-381-5400.
On the day after my swing through TreeHoppers, I visited a very different kind of park--Key Vista Nature Park in tiny Holiday near Tarpon Springs. This quiet, 100-acre reserve of mostly sand pine uplands is bordered by the Gulf of Mexico and Rocky Creek, inviting visitors to fish, swim, hike, and picnic. I walked most of its 1 1/2 miles of trails and climbed the observation tower for a scenic view of the lighthouse at Anclote Key Preserve State Park.
Key Vista is best known for bird watching; with more than 220 documented species, it's a must-stop on the Great Florida Birding and Wildlife Trail.
Save for a nesting osprey cheeping in the pines, I saw few birds on my afternoon walk, but I did get to eavesdrop on an amorous gopher tortoise trying to get lucky with its partner in the scrub.
For more information on Key Vista Nature Park, call 727-938-2598. https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/a-tale-of-two-parks-near-tarpon-springs/){kind=link}
![](mailto:?subject=Guy Harvey Ts star in New Movie About Marine Conservation&body=Last night Capt. Ned Stone, Director of Program Development for <a title="About Guy Harvey Outpost Ltd." href="http://www.biggameclubbimini.com/aboutus.htm" target="_blank">Guy Harvey Outpost Ltd.</a>, attended the premier of <a title="Beneath the Blue web site" href="http://beneaththeblue.quantumreleasing.com/" target="_blank">Beneath the Blue</a> at the <a title="Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival" href="http://www.fliff.com/" target="_blank">Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival</a>. The movie, starring <a title="Caitlin Wachs Wikipedia Bio" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caitlin_Wachs" target="_blank">Caitlin Wachs</a>, <a title="David Keith Wikipedia Bio" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Keith" target="_blank">David Keith</a> (Officer and a Gentleman, Lone Star) and <a title="Paul Wesley Wikipedia Bio" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wesley" target="_blank">Paul Wesley</a> (Vampire Diaries), tells the story of a dolphin research scientist and his daughter who are on a quest to protect dolphins in the Bahamas.
In addition to the important message of protecting sea life, we are big fans of this movie because star David Keith was wearing Guy Harvey T-shirts in three major scenes!
<a href="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/dk-ghshirt4.png"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-267" title="David Keith in "Beaneath the Blue"" src="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/dk-ghshirt4.png?w=300" alt="" width="300" height="169" /></a>
<a href="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/dk-ghshirt21.png"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-268" title="David Keith in "Beaneath the Blue"" src="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/dk-ghshirt21.png?w=300" alt="" width="300" height="166" /></a>
It seems even Hollywood knows the power of the Guy Harvey brand and Guy's message of marine conservation! Stay tuned, the company behind the movie has plans for a sequel and possibly a TV series. For more information, visit the <a title="Beneath the Blue web site" href="http://beneaththeblue.quantumreleasing.com/" target="_blank">Beneath the Blue</a> web site. https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/guy-harvey-ts-star-in-new-movie-about-marine-conservation/){kind=link}
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