FLORIDA BFRO EXPEDITIONS: 2006 through 2007

The first trip started off in a swamp, located in central Florida.
I drove down from PA, bringing a canoe strapped to the top of my car. I hoped to be able to cruise silently through the swamps, but the State was in the middle of a long drought and the water was incredibly low. In photo#14 you can see my tent, and the 60' parachute I strung up between the tent and the jungle. The idea was to be able to have photo equipment out and ready to use, but out of sight of anything on the other side of the parachute. Hopefully this wall of cloth would encourage Squatches to approach behind it's cover.

You can see in several of these photos(15,11) the line of where the water usually is… we’re talking like 6 FEET higher. Consequently, the river I camped next to could only be canoed in for about 200 feet. Then there were the slligaots, wallowing in pools here and there (#10).

Then there were the wild hogs……zillions of them rooting around at night, grunting and crashing and squealing.. they are dangerous(1,12). Near the campsite was a large cage trap, set by “Tim the Hog Guy” ( He sort of resembled one himself) who trapped them, took them home and fattened them up and sold the pork to restaurants. These hogs have become a runaway menace, breeding 3 times a year and spreading northwards. They apparently have interbred with released Russian boars and consequently get larger and fiercer every year. I just saw a program on the Discovery Channel called THE PIG BOMB, detailing this blooming environmental crisis.

The local BFRO Investigators have had excellent luck in this area, with multiple sightings and countless footprints, however our stay in the swamp yielded little. Photo #13 shows an interesting spot the locals took me to where lagre logs had been dragged over and thrown on a fence, apparently to knock it downMatt felt it was because it was so dry and moved the Expedition to a site near a river, some 20 miles away.This shot,#4, shows the table with our equipment piled on it, and #6 shows what looks like child soldiers about to go into battle. It's really just enthusiatic "Newbies"

Here we spread out and began patrolling, knocking and whooping at night.
One night the group was so terrified to hear an enormous roar.. so loud and un-squatch like, that everyone returned to camp. The next morning Matt decided to get to the bottom of this unusual sound. He went to the first house near the campsite and knocked on the door.

“Excuse me, I know this sounds silly, but is there a lion loose around here ?“
“No sir, there’s not one; there’s a whole lot of them right over there in the Barnum and Bailey retired circus animal farm.”

The second trip was down in the Everglades. I’m not a big fan of Florida, at least not of tramping around in the Everglades in the dark. It’s just not too user friendly unless you’re into snakes, spiders, alligators, and lately 150,000 Burmese pythons and two rapidly expanding population groups of Monitor lizards (up to 7’long).

Here we tried our first attempt with the HELO Hybrid Electric Lights Out concept Matt had developed. Using a Toyota Highlander Hybrid with two Ratheon “R2D2” thermal imagers on the roof and Night vision goggles, we could drive silently and lights out along the back roads. See photo#5. Late at night we pulled out of the campground and got on a completely deserted paved road, to drive a few hundred yards to where we could got off into the bush. We got all of 100’ before the cops got us. They turned out to be very nice, one of them being a Bigfoot enthusiast, and let go on our way. See my page on the Olympic Peninsula for more details on HELO.

Distant whoops were heard and Caroline had a brief possible Class A. Some possible tracks were examined in several spots but nothing to light your fire.

I had cleverly forgotten my snake chaps, something I NEVER do, and was being extra careful. Regardless, I stepped right on a water moccasin in the grass, luckily breaking its back in the process. Photo #9 shows a fishing pole with the snake in the water just infront of a large drainWe took the dead snake and tried to entice a large alligator out of a drain pipe, but he wasn’t interested (see#2.... and look closely!). I brought it back to camp, intending to skin it for Matt’s kids, who had come along with Dorota on this trip,but Caroline got to it and cut it up for fish bait first.

I added photos #7,8,and 3 because they were pretty.