Fishing With a Gator in Eastbank Corps of Engineers Campground in Bainbridge, Georgia

View from the back of our site

One of our adventures took us to the border of Georgia and the panhandle of Florida.  We stayed at a beautiful Corps of Engineer (COE) campground in Bainbridge, Georgia called Eastbank.  We had a fantastic water site and were so happy to spend a week there.  Most of the COE campgrounds are near water and the camping facilities are just beautiful with hookups for RVs as well as primitive sites.  They have nice bathhouses with hot showers, a boat ramp, and sometimes a beach for swimming.  What we like about camping in COE campgrounds is that they are reasonably priced and offer discounts for seniors who have the Golden Age pass.


Eastbank campground did not disappoint at all!  We were on Seminole Lake and our view from the Georgia side had the most gorgeous sunsets.  As you look across the lake, you see the dam and Florida!  Our campground was in the Eastern time zone and, if you travel a few miles down the road, you are in the Central time zone.  That was rather interesting!

One of my exciting adventures was my alligator encounter.  I have always wanted to see an alligator in the wild.  I finally got my wish.  This young alligator decided to visit us near our campsite.  As I mentioned, we had a water site, so I was fishing off the shore in our “backyard”.  I saw this unusual looking rock in the water.  I wasn’t sure if it was a gator because it was so still. It looked like a rock at first.  The fishing line went over the “rock” and it moved.  I was so excited to finally see my first gator.  He came closer to the shore. I looked him in the eye and told him I wasn’t going to feed him.

I continued to fish, and I guess the gator thought my bobber looked edible.  He went after it and got hold of the bobber on the fishing line and tried to chomp it.  No luck breaking that apart even with those powerful jaws, but he did break the line.  That was all we caught that week! Don’t worry I was far enough away that I didn’t feel threatened at all.  We had a lot of brush and cinder blocks near the shoreline.  It would have been a challenge for our gator friend to get up on shore.  He came to visit us three more times that week.  He hung out mostly at the other end of the campground.  I would hope people wouldn’t feed them.  That is not a good idea! You wouldn’t want them to be too comfortable around people.  You just never know what you may encounter in the wild!!!