In short: I put in at Griffith Fish Camp in Fargo, Georgia on a 99 degree day and trolled up the Suwannee toward the sill, the broke dam at the edge of the Okefenokee. The plan was to scout up to the refuge boundary, see how far I could get, then drop back down and camp on the outside. Along the way the river went from wide black water to tight tupelo and cypress, and the gators got thick, one of them chasing a bird right in front of the boat.
The current up this stretch runs strong, and going upstream by paddle would about wear a man out. I know some folks think a trolling motor is cheating, but it is the trick for getting up river, and I planned to paddle the whole way back down come morning. This is different water than my home stretch on the St. Marys. Still black water, but the tupelo trees grow right up out of it, and there are spots where the trees near about touch side to side. I lived within an hour of here for fifty two years and never saw it. There is beautiful country all around you if you just get out and find it.
The signs told me where I was. National Wildlife Refuge, no firearms, no camping, no fires, no motors bigger than ten horsepower, and every visitor off the water by sunset. So I knew I could not camp up that way. I trolled on up to the sill just to see it, a mile and a half or two past the boundary sign, with logs laid clean across so there was no getting a canoe through. Then I turned and worked my way back down to the outside of the refuge to find a spot for the night, somewhere with running water and shade and a few pine trees.
I counted four gators in about three hundred yards, three of them big, one close to eight or nine foot. You can size them from the boat by the gap between the eyes and the nose, an inch about equal to a foot. But the thing I will not forget is a five footer that came flying across the water after a water turkey, near about caught it before I spooked the bird off. That told me plain, that gator was hungry, and that meant I was not getting in this water to wash off, not up here. I found my shady spot on the outside of the boundary, running water and pine trees, and made that home for the night instead.
Scouting a stretch before you commit, reading refuge rules and boundaries, and knowing when a hungry gator means you stay dry. It is all in the Canoe Camping Playbook.
Read the Canoe Camping PlaybookIt is a water control structure on the west side of the Okefenokee where the Suwannee River leaves the swamp. It sits right at the edge of the refuge, so paddling up to it puts you at the boundary of the Okefenokee.
No. Inside the refuge there is no camping, no fires, no firearms, no motors over ten horsepower, and everyone must be off the water by sunset. Overnight trips in the swamp itself need an advance permit. Outside the boundary you can camp on the river.
The distance in inches from the eyes to the tip of the nose roughly equals the length in feet. So an eight inch gap means about an eight foot animal, even when all you can see is the head.
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