I got drawn for turkey hunting at a wildlife management area called green swamp is there anyone familar with this area ? Sounds like I may need a air boat ;D
http://myfwc.com/recreation/WMASites_GreenSwamp_index.htm
Looks like a good place to turkey hunt.
I wonder if Dang has one of them air boats? He's got a few boats I know. ;D
No airboat needed, but you can get your feet wet. ;D It is mostly pine flatwoods with cypress swamps and drains throughout. Good turkey hunting, Osceola's.
Mark
Thanks Mark for a old country boy from Ohio its just nice to warm up in March ;D
Bring Mosquito repellant!!! And stop by, we're about 20 miles from the northenmost point of the swamp. Temp. can range from below freezing to quite warm at that time of the year, often in the same day. :o
Mark
ellmoe I will keep that in mind thanks
My son in law and I went down the Withlacoochee River today. It is in the Green Swamp. We planned to fish but it turned into a canoe trip, which was fine. Where we used to put in barricades have been installed by the DOT so we launched the canoe into Gator Creek right near the entrance to Colt Creek State Park. This seemed like a good plan since we would not have to carry the canoe a couple of hundred yards to reach the water. We had to portage twice before we got out of the creek and into the river. Once for a rock dam and the other to go around a low bridge.
We saw several gators, some up to 11' sunning along the bank, a deer, a couple of wild hogs and a turkey as well as quite a few other birds. I have not been down this river in quite a few years even though it is only a few miles from my house and in the Green Swamp.
We went further downstream than I had previously been. On three occasions we had to lift the canoe over logs that had fallen across the river. The river broke up into a swamp that we were unable to get the canoe through due to the cypress knees growing so close together. We got out and waded another quarter to half mile and the swamp opened up into a small lake. I would like to put in in Lacoochee and work our way upstream and see if we can get to where we got out and waded today.
Anyway, we saw a few really old cypress trees today and some stumps of the ones harvested the last century, some that were certainly over 1000 years old. The pictures below were all taken from the same spot looking three different directions from the swamp. I kept a careful eye out for moccasins anytime we were near a sunny spot. I fear them a lot more than gators.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/22883/859258E5-17F9-4876-9736-8161473DA334.jpeg?easyrotate_cache=1638047639)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/22883/17717CD1-917F-4023-9229-9E49F65FE630.jpeg?easyrotate_cache=1638047639)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/22883/3E56DDCC-73BD-4A38-B94F-5930A4E268A7.jpeg?easyrotate_cache=1638047631)
That view creeps me out!
I agree with Mike. No way this Wisconsin boy is putting his feet in that water to portage a canoe. Very, very few poisonous critters around here. That's why I live where the air hurts your face in the winter.
Quote from: mike_belben on November 27, 2021, 06:11:51 PMThat view creeps me out!
That view makes me think that once it freezes over, it's ripe for a narrow machine and some TSI thinning! That would slow down the moccasins too, no?
😄😄😄
You're at home in your element Kyle, nice photos, thanks!
Quote from: mike_belben on November 27, 2021, 06:11:51 PM
That view creeps me out!
I found this part of the swamp to be beautiful. The water was sheet flowing through the swamp due to a wetter than normal November. The air temperature early in the day was in the high 40's so the bugs were not bad. I only had one mosquito buzz me all day. The water temperature was cool enough that I wasn't too worried about snakes being in the water.
If you wanted to torture someone, this would be a fine spot to leave them in the summer or early fall. Those big, white striped mosquitoes would deal misery with the ability to sting through two shirts and jeans. This could also be a spooky place at night. Since the water was flowing, we were able to walk upstream and were able to return to the canoe but it is pretty easy for me to get turned around in the swamps.
Most of the big cypress still standing had the tops busted out by storms but there were a few spared by the loggers or the storms. The diameters of the buttresses on some of the larger ones was in the 8-10' range with a dbh of 5-6'. This place would have been some kind of impressive 100 years ago. Most of the cypress in this area was cut by Cummer and Sons. I posted a video a few years ago about the last cypress log train.
Thanks for the pictures.
Got a link to the vid?
No way I'd ever step in any body of water that had a gator in it.... Or SNAKES! I might venture through in a Argo but no canoe!
It looks pretty cool to me, snakes, gators and all. Glad someone is able to bring photos back to share. :)
Beautiful! Thanks, caveman.
Reminds me of back home in south Louisiana.
In bootcamp we had to do some night movements single file straight through waist deep coastal south carolina swamp in aug or september i believe. No lights, no talking, pitch pitch black zero moon.. Im sure that was scheduled on purpose.
What i remember most is that it was as fast as you could power walk into pure knee to waist deep blackness. following the sound of splashes was how you stayed together. But it was hard to hear the splashing in front over the sound of the splashing behind.
The human train was broken up in several places as someone would lose track of the person in front then stop. then theres a pitch black accordian wreck and youre falling into invisible swamp muck and operating purely on senses, then running straight into stump and whatnot trying to find and catch up to the tail end of the train in front of you. Surprising no one drown in a trampling. It was the kinda thing i was glad involved a few hundred other scared kids to get eaten first!
I know i could do it again if i had to but ill tell ya. A good flashlight and a .410 governor fulla PDX would ease my mind a bit.
Photos are safer than snakes and gators. :)
As father once said to mother when she asked him if he would like to volunteer for anything now that he had retired, just for something to do. "I volunteered all my life, I'm all done now". ;D
Quote from: mike_belben on November 28, 2021, 02:08:20 PMGot a linhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgRuCJmI_XIk to the vid?[/quote
Pretty sure you can see the ghost of Lucius Clay holding a mason jar in the middle of that third photo. :D