THE AREA

Located just a few doors down from Bob's Landing, Crooked Lake Cove is an extremely convenient location if you're bringing your boat. Bob's Landing offers usage of their boat ramp for $7 per dropoff.

Lake Caloosa or Crooked Lake as it is now known is over 7,000 acres and is one of the largest lakes in Polk County. It is listed on the top 10 most outstanding Florida Freshwater lakes, due to water quality and it’s natural beauty. The lake has a 60 foot deep spring as well as 6 other springs. There are also large areas of the lake that contain water 30 feet deep, perfect habitat for monster bass. Crooked Lake is known to be the "Bass Capital of the World."  Other varieties of freshwater fish such as bluegill, crappie and catfish can also be found in these waters.

Crooked Lake is located on the Lake Wales Ridge, one of the highest areas in peninsula Florida. The Lake Wales Ridge is a sand ridge running for about 150 miles south to north in Central Florida. Covered almost completely by water two million years ago, only a series of small islands existed in this Central Florida area. It is the remnants of those islands that make up today's Lake Wales Ridge. Although the waters have receded, the islands continue to support distinctive life forms found nowhere else. The area consists of clusters of shrubs scattered between patches of open sand. The lack of canopy cover and very deep porous sands create a hot, dry, desert like habitat. Due primarily to a long period of isolation, plants and animals that live on the Ridge have developed ways to deal with their harsh environment.

One of the area's best known residents is Florida's only endemic bird, the Florida scrub-jay. Other animals of the scrub spend much of their lives underground to escape the hot Florida sun as well as to avoid predators. The gopher tortoise digs a burrow underground that may be up to ten feet deep and up to 30 feet long. More than 360 species may share the gopher's burrow. Other small animals such as the sand skink leave only "S"-shaped tracks as it "swims" just beneath the surface of the sand. It is the only known sand-swimming skink in North America and occurs in only seven counties in Florida. Directly across the cove from Crooked Lake Cove's location you will see a protected grove of trees that are one of the limited homes to these sand skinks. 

Most of the vegetation in the Lake Wales Sand Ridge consists of scrub plants with thick waxy coated leaves that are drought tolerant. In the early twentieth century parts of the ridge were converted to citrus groves. More recently, some of the citrus groves, particularly in the north of the ridge, have been redeveloped for residential housing. Today several areas of the Ridge are protected National Wildlife Refuges and State Forest.