Green Swamp WMA in Florida

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jhogue
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Re: Green Swamp WMA in Florida

Post by jhogue »

On my Florida trip this year, I only got wet once, and it was the last day. Man did I get wet though. I fell once, then dropped into a hole that was much deeper than everything else around it. I also managed to not see even one snake the whole week.

I’ve been watching Cove’s videos that are starting to post on the Pinhoti project. Looks like they stayed dry on at least their first two days in Florida based on the videos posted thus far.
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Re: Green Swamp WMA in Florida

Post by Grumpy »

howl wrote: June 25th, 2018, 4:49 pm No grizzlies in MT turkey country?


Not down here in the low country, I wouldn't hunt turkeys if I had to worry about bears either, never seen a bear yet in the walmart turkey freezer case area either. :lol:
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Re: Green Swamp WMA in Florida

Post by Grumpy »

Hognutz wrote: June 25th, 2018, 8:07 pm The name of the place freaks me out!
You got that right, probably Jimmy Hoffa met his fate in there :lol:
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Re: Green Swamp WMA in Florida

Post by deerhunt1988 »

They absolutely love to roost in the 'cypress domes'. The birds are there and killable if you are willing to put in the work. I recommend arriving a couple days before the opener to scout. Try to roost every evening. The birds seem to be more vocal after fly up than easterns.
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Re: Green Swamp WMA in Florida

Post by Brandon Martin »

Thanks guys for all the info. Im pretty familiar with Florida and the thunderstorms as im in florida at least once a yr it seems lately. I am heading down to Tampa for a 2 week vaction here soon and plan on checking thw place out. The swamps will be a new experience but hopefully an enjoyable one.
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guesswho
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Re: Green Swamp WMA in Florida

Post by guesswho »

I don't think you can get in now. It used to be closed except for a week or two in June. May have changed
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Cove
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Re: Green Swamp WMA in Florida

Post by Cove »

jhogue wrote: June 25th, 2018, 11:21 pm On my Florida trip this year, I only got wet once, and it was the last day. Man did I get wet though. I fell once, then dropped into a hole that was much deeper than everything else around it. I also managed to not see even one snake the whole week.

I’ve been watching Cove’s videos that are starting to post on the Pinhoti project. Looks like they stayed dry on at least their first two days in Florida based on the videos posted thus far.
You're right. It was a dry year down there this past spring. I've hunted the area we were in on Day 1 when we got out of the truck into a foot of water. We don't start getting wet until Day 4. It's a year to year type of deal in my experience. But I always seem to find the one that's across the canal or deep strand. :violent1:

I think the safe bet is to have your mind prepared to get wet.
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howl
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Re: Green Swamp WMA in Florida

Post by howl »

Gator nest? I've never actually seen a nest up close. When they start that roaring, I start going the other direction.
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Re: Green Swamp WMA in Florida

Post by GLS »

turkeybuster was engaged in his pre-dawn daily devotional in the bushes near a lowcountry river when he heard what he thought was a raccoon walking through the nearby brush. It was a big gator. The sight of the gator sped up the "devotional" and TB finished quickly and got out fast.
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Re: Green Swamp WMA in Florida

Post by Grumpy »

A life insurance salesman could open a temporary office there during turkey season and make a killin' too
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Re: Green Swamp WMA in Florida

Post by ICDEDTURKES »

timbrhuntr wrote: June 25th, 2018, 9:26 am I love it when the question is asked about Florida and the snake and alligator pics come out LOL. I hunted 3 years in Texas and 3 in Florida and thankfully the only snake I saw was a dead diamondback on the road !! My second Osceola hunt the bird I shot flopped into the middle of a large drainage ditch full of water about waist high I almost left him there :oops: ;)
We've hunted similar areas. I used to have anxiety through the roof when it came to snakes, I actually had a panic attack in Texas and refused to walk through thigh deep grass to kill a gobbling bird.

I'm over it now for the most part. I ran into some Rattlers guiding in KS. Florida is cottonmouth central. Guiding there this spring you'd see em pretty often. Sal would have got struck one day but it was cool she walked right over it. Sal had a client this spring from the south, she got down to crawl a bird in a palmetto flat, he refused, that's snake habitat. She went first lol

I had 4 Gators living out 50 yards from lodge door in the pond. When I needed Tom Time I'd go out on the dock at night, sit and listen to them at night and shine them.
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Re: Green Swamp WMA in Florida

Post by Hognutz »

Did I ever tell you the story of my run in with a wood tick? :D
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dsunday
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Re: Green Swamp WMA in Florida

Post by dsunday »

Has anyone had a gator snatch up a turkey who was coming to your call? 😂
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Re: Green Swamp WMA in Florida

Post by MKW »

Wading a waist-deep swamp slough with gators and snakes makes one feel alive. It's just part of hunting in many parts of the southeast. I'll take gators and snakes over mountainous terrain any day.
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Re: Green Swamp WMA in Florida

Post by timbrhuntr »

MKW wrote: June 26th, 2018, 1:21 pm Wading a waist-deep swamp slough with gators and snakes makes one feel alive. It's just part of hunting in many parts of the southeast. I'll take gators and snakes over mountainous terrain any day.
I might just agree hunting the high country in New Mexico I think I came closer to having a heart attack than I ever did to getting bit by a snake in the south !

Only real scare I had with a snake was swimming in Lake Erie and running into 2 Lake Erie water snakes which look a lot like a water moccasins and act like them and can be very aggressive but thankfully are not poisonous which I know for a fact having been bitten several times by one !
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Re: Green Swamp WMA in Florida

Post by HunterGKS »

timbrhuntr wrote: June 26th, 2018, 3:32 pm
Only real scare I had with a snake was swimming in Lake Erie and running into 2 Lake Erie water snakes which look a lot like a water moccasins and act like them and can be very aggressive but thankfully are not poisonous which I know for a fact having been bitten several times by one !
When I 1st moved back to Ohio from FL, I was moving some riprap & found 1 under a piece of concrete. Luckily it took off before I could kill it thinking it was a moccasin. At the time, the water snake was a federally threatened species. They aren't any more.
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guesswho
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Re: Green Swamp WMA in Florida

Post by guesswho »

I've seen some wild stuff in Green Swamp. I once saw a solid white armadillo, a lizard that was at least five feet long, some type of little monkey (spider monkey maybe?), and killed whatever this was. It was with several others and this one got pretty rowdy. I originally left him where I shot him. Then when we were checking out I was telling a GW about seeing them. He said you should have shot them. I told him I didn't want to get in trouble, he said anything not native isn't protected. I told him we'll be back shortly, then went and got it. When we checked back out he said he originally thought I was full of it when I was describing what I saw. Said he had never seen or heard of anything like that in Green Swamp. That's my Paw Paw from West Virginia with me in the picture. Said he would of shot all of them :lol:
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Re: Green Swamp WMA in Florida

Post by hookspur »

That's where I camp and hunt every year. I'm not gonna try to dissuade you from trying it, but I will say that everything negative you hear about it is true.....The Swamp is a very tough place to kill birds consistently. For example: this past spring I was not answered by a single turkey for the last 20 days of my month-long stay!!! Maybe that's a testament to my calling skills, but it really began to wear on my confidence after a while. In fact, it was down-right depressing! Man; was I ever eager to take vengeance on those evil, hainted Osceola's cousins once I left the state!

I think there are many other far superior places to hunt in Florida in terms of turkey numbers and success rates, so you should do some research before deciding on GS. I will continue to hunt/camp there only because I've been going for so long (29 years), I know it so well, and we have what I consider to be the best turkey camp experience imaginable. Lots of good friends, good food, good turkey hunters, and good times!
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Re: Green Swamp WMA in Florida

Post by Shiloh »

Well.......did you ever kill on Hookspur? Speaking of a confidence killer.......I had to leave SW PA this year where I was hearing multiple birds every morning without a kill. It really hurt my feelings to drive away from there!!! I left Florida once without a bird on a LE hunt at Lake Panasofkee. It was another scenario where I felt like if I'd just had one more day..........
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Re: Green Swamp WMA in Florida

Post by trkykilr »

I hunt SC swamps, so gators, cottonmouths, and rattlesnakes are a way of life. I cross sloughs/creeks/rivers that are over my head deep each year to get to birds. I try not to sit on snakes, and I don't go picking them up, but they don't bother you.

I always find it funny that people will drive to where they hunt, whether in state or out, and the whole time they are passing hormonal 16 year old girls that are crying and texting their ex boyfriends to try to get him back. They pass this gal head-on on a 2 lane road, and they worry about the danger of snakes.

I sell life insurance, so I know what kills people. It aint snakes and gators.
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SwampDrummin
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Re: Green Swamp WMA in Florida

Post by SwampDrummin »

guesswho wrote: June 25th, 2018, 8:37 pm
Hognutz wrote: June 25th, 2018, 8:07 pm The name of the place freaks me out!
I once found a place in a secluded area in Green Swamp that I was convinced was where a Bigfoot lived. Something had beat down a bunch of thick weeds, maybe a 50' circle. In the middle it had gathered up a bunch of weeds and cat-tails and and piled them on broke limbs that were about baseball diameter and made a perfect bed about 2' high, 4' wide and about 8' long. Not that I've seen many, but I thought that was about the right size for a medium sized Bigfoot. It stunk too! I told my Dad about it and he asked me if I'd been smoking that whacky weed :lol: I took him and showed it to him and he said he didn't know what the heck it was but it was time to go :LMAO: To this day I don't know what made it.
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Re: Green Swamp WMA in Florida

Post by hookspur »

Hey Ronnie,
Legend has it that a China-man jumped ship in Tampa and somehow made his way there. He supposedly lived in The Swamp for quite a while, eating armadillos and whatever he could catch, breaking into nearby houses to steal pots and pans and such. The authorities supposedly caught him and took him to jail, but he hung himself in his cell. Maybe you found his camp?
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Re: Green Swamp WMA in Florida

Post by guesswho »

hookspur wrote: June 27th, 2018, 6:38 pm Hey Ronnie,
Legend has it that a China-man jumped ship in Tampa and somehow made his way there. He supposedly lived in The Swamp for quite a while, eating armadillos and whatever he could catch, breaking into nearby houses to steal pots and pans and such. The authorities supposedly caught him and took him to jail, but he hung himself in his cell. Maybe you found his camp?
I remember that well. It is a real story. There was even an article in the Lakeland Ledger about it when they caught him. Even showed a picture a camp he broke into. I also remember a story of a woman who had an encounter with him prior to his capture at her clothes line. Prior to them catching him there was a rash of Bigfoot sightings and claims of the Bigfoot going through camps. Then when they caught him it was this little short scrawny Chinaman.

It was the right time frame, and that's why I thought Bigfoot :lol: If it was was the China-mans, he definitely needed a bath. Smelled like what I thought a Skunkape would smell like.
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Re: Green Swamp WMA in Florida

Post by hookspur »

Can you imagine living in the swamp night and day for months?? The darned skeeters had to have sucked all the blood out of him! He probably rolled in dead critters just to try and keep them at bay.
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Re: Green Swamp WMA in Florida

Post by guesswho »

Green Swamp holds my personal record for the most mosquitos. It was during bow season in September. I remember it like it was like yesterday. I was walking out and thinking why do I do this. Back in the day love bugs were really bad. And the swamp didn't have any shortage of them either. May and September were the love bug months. They would completely cover a bright colored vehicle.
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