i can’t credit this to original poster who said they live 15 mins away from Carlton Reserve so please delete of not allowed. I copied this because I found it informative and apparently it may shed some light on questions people here have about the reserve:
If you took a team of Navy Seals and dropped them off in the middle of this reserve, theyd not last very long, granted longer than most folks, but not more than 3-4 days at the max. What you cant see from the news choppers is that the swamp is almost impossible to manuever through. From the air all you see is grass. That 'grass' is anywhere from 3 feet tall to over your head. Furthermore, the ground that grass grows on, floats on top of water in many areas. You aint walking through it. Forget about the millions of deadly snakes and spiders, and silly gators, the mosquitos will literally eat a person alive, a person stuck in that situation would lose his effin mind from the nonstop relentless onslaught of squeeter bites, up your nose, in your eyes, in your ears, bite bite bite.... Now if all those things werent bad enough theres one more thing thats more deadly than all those things combined. The humidity. It gets soo hot and humid in a swamp, you'd never survive without a constant supply of drinking water and shade. You cant drink swamp water, its brackish, a combination of fresh water and salt water. And for those that have suggested he could be up in a tree....NO. Not a chance in hell. I dare anyone to go into a swamp and climb a tree, ill call the paramedics you now. Ya know whats in ALL those trees? ANTS. All kinds of ants, and they all bite,some with deadly results. Fire ants even swim!! They clump up into massive balls, millions of them, and they float across the water. If you swam or stepped into that, you'd be dead within the hour. So imo, there is absolutely zero chance he'd be in there, he knew all of this, he lives there, hell we all know these things down here. Ironically, the gators are the least of his worries, you can swim with them and typicaly, gators will leave a person alone, even if youre in the water 10 feet from them. Now mating season is a bit different. In that case, if you get close to a gator den, you sir are ****** royally. I once came up on a gator while in my flat bottom boat, i simply didnt see it, stealty little fellas. He popped up next to me and lunged for me, landing half way in the boat. I smacked it with my fishing rod, its all i had, and it took off. I may have peed a little. But that is about the only time you should be leary of a gator.