Camping on Florida’s Santa Fe River

The Santa Fe River is a tributary that flows into the Suannee. The Santa Fe is home to numerous springs, and the river itself can get gin clear when the water is low. The river is pretty, but packed with people particularly on summer weekends. A few buddies and me decided to spend a few nights camping on the river, not a one of us knew a thing about it.

We put out near Ellie Ray’s, south of Live Oak, campground and went upriver. The water was black stained and up from recent rains. Local’s told us the fish wouldn’t bite with the water low and clear, so this was good for us. My buddy Ryan and I were in his ghenoue, and we caught a ton of redbellies and a few warmouth’s mostly on meal worms and crickets. I did catch a small largemouth, but none of the Suannee bass that I had heard inhabit the river. The fish were small, but pulled bigger. The river has a strong current and the fish get strong from battling it. Mostly we just fished along the pretty cypress lined banks, and in the eddies. We got a lot more bites out of the current.

Finding a camping spot proved much harder than any of us had expected. We probably ran four hours upriver the first day before we found something suitable. There seemed to be a house around every bend, and due to the water level being up we could find no sandbars. Finally we found a small bluff that looked like would work, and there were no houses on this little stretch of river. We fried fish both nights, and they were extremely good being so fresh.

The second day we went upriver past Hwy 47 bridge, and found a great rope swing that we had fun on for a while, and then continued going up. This is when we ran into literally thousands of people floating down the river on tubes. We had to turn around then and fished our way back to where we had pitched our tents.

All in all we had a decent time on the river, but it was more the place you take your girlfriend, not a place for you and the boys to get away from everything. The fish bit well and pulled good, but were not massive by any means. The river was pretty though.