Last Weekend
I went camping and riding on and near a friends "place". He followed his sister's advice and took all of the equity out of the house and the land and invested it elsewhere during the housing boom and now the property is in foreclosure. He has wanted me to go up there for years.
Its a place called The Prairie in Okeechobee County, Fl. The only thing was that the weekend was also a joint operation weekend by the Fish and Wildlife Commission and the Okeechobee County Sheriffs office. While we had 1,000s of acres to ride in it seemed like every time we popped out of the woods we got stopped by officers.
This was the first time my friend had ever even seen a law enforcement officer on the property. We got pulled over on a dirt road the first time on Friday night. The sheriff was very nice. He said they were trying to crack down on non-land owners riding through posted land and tearing up the dirt roads. He said he saw by our headlights that we were not doing that and asked that we respect that people drive these roads and want them to stay in good condition. The roads are all white sand and not hard packed at all. Just graded Florida sand. He says ride responsibly and have fun.
He leaves and Cassi is riding a 4 wheeler and she goes around the corner following him with throttle full open and the rear end broke free fish tailing like a mad woman! Her dad and I pull along side of her and ask what the hell did the sheriff just say!
"He said have fun", she replied. No! he said don't tear up the roads and you go rooster tailing it around all Duke of hazards and stuff! LOL
The next day we heard that the FWC was going to be all over the place. We just didn't know they were targeting ATVs. We saw the chopper flying around while we made breakfast. Then we rode for a couple of hours with no worries. As we were riding some back trails the chopper got over us and started following. It followed for about 20 minutes and I decided to head back out to the dirt rode. He got very low above us and then when we hit the dirt rode he got right on top off us and flew in front and told us over the loudspeaker to turn off the machines. We did and he circled for a few minutes and then two unmarked trucks with lights flashing came up and two sheriff deputies got out of each truck. Then this FWC officer comes riding up in an old Gator.
They ran my vin and license and said have a good day. I had turned my Ranger of when the fan was coming on and so it was too hot to start. I had to wait for it to cool off. A couple of minutes later another truck pulls up and two FWC officers get out and ask us if we had been pull over yet. We said yeah, the helicopter and two trucks and the Gator had just left.
Went on another ride and when we were going back to the property. We were crossing the last dirt road just at sunset when we saw them down the road and coming at us. My sister-in-law was driving and I told just drive the less than a quarter mile to the property and they can talk to us around the campfire. LOL Sean was behind us and he stopped and they said if he was with us to just go ahead and drive on in to the property.
One thing odd about the ride up to the property was I seen three massive deer. Like the big ones northern folks get. But, the antlers were too big. We guessed it was a elk or a Red deer. The area has some high fence hunting preserves with exotics. I also know some elk have somehow gotten loose down south on the west side of the lake. I asked these FWC officers about that while we talked and they said that they had red deer, elk and axis deer that had escaped from preserves. So, we guess what I saw was a great big red stag. I told them we aren't poachers. But, I know folks from Okeechobee and there just ain't no way them deer should still be out there that close to the road in the day light. They just laughed and said they knew what I was talking about. There are some notorious poachers in Okeechobee County!
We had a good time riding all in all. Though we did try to calculate how much the helicopter stop cost tax payers. LOL
My phone died and I didn't take a camera. So, the picture are limited.
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My niece and her cousin.
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There was a fire on both sides of the road going in and I think that might of had something to do with them red deer being out near the rode.
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Safely back in the Batch cave!
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Originally Posted by hunter63
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