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Lake O update

Rich Andrews

Well-known member
Back to work after a LONG week off !!

The Lake level actually stayed up a bit this past week. We were still able to access Dynamite pass with a little bit of extra HP to get you through the stick stuff. About 1/3 of the middle pasture is open for riding, the rest is DRY, or in the case of my buddy who got stuck as I was leaving town and had to go rescue...REAL sticky. If the ride is being planned on the Lake, you won't see alot of it, but nevertheless there is some area to see.
I checked into the creek and it is down and it's just river riding. To get a permit is real easy all you need is your FL numbers Hull iD# and address phone etc. In Moore Haven the campgroung has power or primitive camping, shower/bathroom etc. They serve a real good breakfast on weekends for 5 bucks and they offer a secured area to leave your stuff behind. The park is private and it cost 3 $ to launch if your not camping. You can pull your boat up on the shoreline and leave it overnight.
Just down the street is a good Mexican restuarant a local bar, a hotel(Rice hotel)and EMS should anyone need that. AV gas is available in Breighton if your coming from the North, or Clewiston airpark sells it as well(most of the time).

Ducks were few and far between......but we did find one with a band on his leg(thanks to Drake). Whatever I can do to help..just let me know.
 
Uncle Joes Fish Camp is in Moore Haven I rode this weekend and the lake is definitely sticky. Still plenty to see though. Fisheating Creek is a good ride when the water is way up but now its follow the leader. There are rocks in places. Not a very fun ride. But if you try it theres a picnic table at Fort Center that the Lakeport airboat club put in and is a good place to stop. Best riding on the creek is in the summer. Also, plenty of places in Lakeport to stay, eat, drink, launch, or whatever you want. Hope this helps.
 
DEFINITELY not uncle joe's//the ramp there is horrible at best.
The place I am talking about is the Moore Haven Marina on the west side of the bridge.
 
So what are we looking at a month from now. If we don't get much rain sounds like we need to ride 3a first and then come to lake O say in April.
How's that sound.
 
No, I think the Alvin Ward park is located on the east side of the bridge and lock..where the bass boats launch. We call the place I am referring to as the Moore Haven yacht club..it is directly in front of the Moore Haven canal.
 
There's good ramps at Harney pond. Its not that far from fisheating creek,just have to drive a little further to the east. plenty of parking there.
 
your right on the name...just keep going west on that dirt road, and you'll come to a gate(1mi)...go through the gate and that is where you get your permit, and you will see the ramp on the rt side.
 
Hey Rich,
How ya been ? This is one of the twins you met @ curry island. I was over at okeechobee before christmas and was talking to a guy at okeechobee outfitters about the lake. He told me that water management had passed a law or something to the effect that would lower the level of okeechobee buy two feet and a draw down during hurricane season. Now from what this fellow said or maybe how I understood it,it's pretty close the level it is now. Another topic, is the road your talking about,this road is right across from the curry island entrance? Well have a happy New Year !
 
The road is Banana Grove. It is directly across 78 from the entrance to Curry Island. The boat ramp on the west side of Fisheating creek bridge is not really a ramp when the water is down. There is a gate there and it is a long ways to the water right now. Anyones boat should be able to make it under the bridge right now though.
 
It's all a manipulation. Spend excess tax revenues. Even though they say they are trying to restore wetlands, glades, bring back the natural state. etc etc. They want to establish a different "natural" state so more can be developed and less the state will have to "manage".

The Big-O is in trouble, bad bad trouble. What lies underneath is what we are waiting for. They say to restore the natural bottom or to create a reservoir or to repair a defective dike system. How many plans are going on over there?
The bottom was killed by aquatic weed control(gov't program) and this is the second attempt at restoration. They kept spraying after the first attempt and have repeated the same conditions by doing so. It's just crazy.

This state has not had anyone since Bob Grahm that actually cared about keeping Florida and not turning it into New York City with all of the "culture and arts" B.S. that goes along with it.
 
What's up Flcowboy, hope you guys have been doing OK. We'll be in Moore Haven this weekend, probally do a booze cruise one afternoon. I probally won't be messin with the ducks since it is so hot out there.

BTW, I heard SFWMD is hiring a consultant to help them monitor and control water levels in their own toilets at work.

Lots of rumors out and about regarding what they plan to do. IMO they'll just let it sit this way for a while till rainy season comes along and it will be back up to normal. As long as Big sugar is happy nothing will change.Sugar is king for now till they decide to pull out, and when they do, it won't be a pretty site they leave behind.
 
The water leaving a modern sugar farm today is cleaner than the water which came into the same sugar farm unless it was pumped from a deep aquifer well.

Yes the sugar farms are shrinking and many are quitting and many will be replaced by houses allowed to be built on filled lands in compensation for cleaning up other lands. there is no free ride, someone has to pay the bill and every one hollers about the taxes, well developers are business men and they want something back when they spend money.

Yes the towns that have depended on the sugar farms, the very same sugar farms they are now complaining about, will drastically change and maybe even cease to exist in any recognizable manner.

The government has been subsidizing the price of sugar for many years to keep the farms right where they are. Well now that is coming to an end because of the complaining about taxes and damage to the environment. However it will come at a cost and for some a rather steep cost.

The average american can't even manage their credit card debt which is evident by the huge amount of it most have, yes I know some folks don't use them so save the remarks. How would you like to be responsible for managing a water shed the size of the lower half of florida, and taking the leave it alone attitude would be good except that it has already been messed with. If you favor the leave it alone method then we should start by tearing down the dike around okeechobee and watching thousand of home be destroyed along the east and west coast every time a hurricane blew across it. We should cancel everyones flood insurance which would cause lenders to stop lending money in florida which would result in a huge depression setting in due to the loss of jobs.

And everyone of you who live in a subdivision have developers to tahnk for your little piece of paradise you call home. There are a few who live on the family ranches but very few. So keep on bashing the developers and the agencies and thank goodness they ignore you because if we just leave the water alone in this state most of us will be flooded at one time or another during storms and we would be burned by the forest fires resulting from the droughts lowering the water in a more natural way periodically which would allow more vegetation to grow and then burn later.

But by golly we would have a lot more room to run airboats if we could just afford to buy the gas for them. LMAO :wav:
 
What is disturbing to me is the notion that bulldozing the dike and flooding out all those subdivision homes and the ensuing depression and associated reduction in polulation in that area as though it would have some negative impact. That worries me signicantly. How can something so positive be negative. Greater flood plane, greater whatershed and less people. Wheres the negative? Simple.....There isn't one.

I have solutions but it isn't left up to me to decide, of it were I could solve it in one fell swoop. However it isn't so I live with what I have and whatever I am left with at the end of the developers rape of Florida.

Scotty
 
Sometimes I gotta remind myself....

We did not lose it... we SOLD it.

95% (or more) of our prosperity is because of the development.

I just wish the GROWTH part could stop.

But much of that prosperity is linked to the growth too.

It's sad.

Narcoosee is the next town to die. If you want to see one of the last great hometown hardware & feed stores - go to the University of Narcoossee. Witness the narrow isles and the wood burning stove by the register and chickens & shiners for sale by the door.
It'll go away when they build a Walmart & Home Depot out there.

Same with the grocery store next door. A grocery store with taxidermy'd game on the walls!!! And a cold cut sandwich that will bring tears to your eyes.

And it's death warrant is written.

Looks like East Lake Toho is going to be the first part of the Kissimmee chain to go, and it's going to take Narcoossee with it. It's a shame.

:cry:

matt.
 
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