Becks Fish Camp & Nature Preserve

Specialties

Providing a Natural setting for hiking, biking, horseback riding, camping, fresh water fishing, and boating on the Escambia River and it’s bayous and creeks. Nature supplies the Scenery and we provide the entrance to this marvelous natural area just a few miles from Pensacola, Florida.

History

Established in 1950.

Sometime in the 1860’s the Beck family acquired about 800 acres of land next to the Escambia River on Big Rock Creek and set up a farm and sawmill. They used the bayou that came to be called «Becks Lake» to float the logs and prepare the «rafts» for tow down river to the big sawmillson Pensacola Bay near the Port. Before that there are tales of pirates, treasure and Indians that lived and played on the property. General Jackson camped his 15,000 troops here in 1821 it is believed.

In the late 1940’s or early 1950’s the area that was the Sawmill «village» was turned into a Fish Camp with a boat ramp to the large bayou called «Becks Lake», the original Becks Lake having been further upstream on Big Rock Creek where the sawmill had been located. The dam has burst some years before and the lake had dried up.

The new «Fish Camp» was very popular when it was discovered that the deep bayou held a treasure trove of fresh water fish of all kinds, which it still does.

Meet the Manager

Billy B.

Manager

Billy and his wife Lessie live on the property and keep watch over it. They raise goats and some crops as well as keeping the trails mowed and registering campers.

Billy grew up in a Georgia Peanut farmer’s family and had previously worked as Service supervisor at Pelicans Perch Marina & Boatyard, a business owned by the same owner as the Fish Camp.