CAMPING AT FISHEATING CREEK

• Welcome back campers and adventurefolk, to another edition of “Florida Fsho!” After a week next to the Suwannee River, camping at Springfest in Live Oak, the Dead Cat Travel Crew continued south to the banks of Fisheating Creek in Palmdale. In an obvious effort to avoid city life, we found our way to Fisheating Creek Outpost and enjoyed the lazy shade of it’s the oaks for another rustic week of dirty feet, fancy tents, and fire-cooked camping balls. Read on adventure lover.

Resurrection ferns at Fish Eating Creek 2016

• Fisheating Creek Outpost offers camping, boating, and hiking along one of the most pristine waterways in Florida. It’s about 15 miles north of Labelle and 30 miles south of Sebring. Moore Haven is about 20 miles going east on highway 27 if you need to get out and see the big city. The outpost campsite is pretty remote so make sure you have all your junk with you when you arrive.

ACTIVITIES FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT AT FISHEATING CREEK OUTPOST

• Canoeing: The outpost rents canoes and kayaks and their ramp services small boats. Take your own armada and use their ramp for free. Fisheating Creek, with it’s overhanging branches and narrow oxbows is one of the best paddles in Florida and you will see something unexpected.

• Fishing: The outpost store sells jugs of night crawlers that will catch fish for anyone but the dedicated angler is danging a green beetle spinner bait and taking it straight to the fish. Be in the business of being an awesome fisherman. Don’t let those fresh water fish push you around. You’re better than that. Kids were swarming like locusts everywhere. Bring extra rigs for other kids because there’s nothing sadder than watching someone else fish. Your only real responsibility will be to untangle knots and bait hooks.

• Hiking: Enjoy hiking in a tropical wilderness and follow deep, lush trails of early natives and explorers. The surrounding fauna includes includes deer, turkey, wild hogs, marsh rabbits, alligators, gopher tortoise and just about anything else you’d expect to find in the remote wilderness of south Florida. Watch for heron, egrets, ibis, eagles, caracaras, Florida scrub jay and red-cockaded woodpeckers. Visit diverse biomes such as marsh, cypress swamps, hardwood hammocks, and scrub. Take the kids out for a night time nature walk and leave them on the trail. Send them on a snipe hunt. It’s all good fun.

• Swimming: There’s plenty of places to enjoy the water if you don’t mind swimming with alligators. We let our children swim in the hopes of getting rid of one or two but the gators seemed mostly interested in fish. Take a short canoe ride around the creek bend and find a perfect beach where you will feel comfortable letting your people swim. The campground also houses a pond with a public beach, rope swing, and nearby camp sites.

• Helpful Tip #17: Fisheating Creek has it’s fair share of alligators and they are an important part of the region’s ecosystem. If you can refrain from feeding them, that would be nice. You can always tell a gator that’s friendly with people because they may just walk right up and ask to share the rest of your sandwich. Not really. They just float at a safe distance, watching silly tourists. If you ever have a close encounter with one, open the jaws, reach down his throat and pull out his tail, inside out, through his mouth. The other gators will think you’re so bad that they will likely leave you alone. Also eat gator tail before you go so they’ll smell it on your breath.

• Thanks for continuing to make Nail Travels your first stop for Florida camping, fishing, and general frolicking. We know that you could go anywhere else for your skunk ape news and sightings, but why would you?