While we purposely did not stay at Bobby’s Fish Camp, I must tell you about it none the less…Everyone who travels the Tenn-Tom and therefore does the Loop has a comment or opinion on Bobby’s Fish Camp. The reason that this location is so famous (or infamous) is due to the fact that it is truly the ONLY place to purchase fuel between Demopolis and Mobile Bay, a distance of approximately 217 miles. For a boat with a range of less than 200 miles this means that the boat must refuel at Bobby’s Fish Camp which is located at mile marker 119.4.
Yes, it is owned by a man named Bobby who has lived along the river forever. A new fuel dock was installed in 2003 and while not fancy in the least, it is a vast improvement over the previous arrangement which consisted of a fuel tank up on a hill with a really long hose… The transient dock is 160 feet of connected floating docks that run parallel to the river bank. The dock spaces fill very quickly, especially during the fall and spring migrations, so it becomes necessary for boats to raft together as they stay the night. To date the maximum number of boats that have been accommodated at Bobby’s at any given time is seventeen. The dock has no electrical service except for one 100 volt 30 amp outlet and if you need water, there is spigot at the fuel dock. Don’t even think about asking for a courtesy car…Now here is the best part, the fee to stay at Bobby’s is .80 a foot for these luxurious and stellar accommodations and that is if you are one of the seventeen boats “lucky” enough to get there first. There is a restaurant on site that is open Thursday through Sunday “most of the time”.
Mark and I planned our anchorages so that we would not have to “experience” Bobby’s. Not that we are being snobs, instead, because we are becoming tightwads with our retirement funds. Eighty cents a foot is a lot to pay for the privilege of banging into and bouncing around with sixteen other boats as barges/ pushers pass during the night within literally feet of one’s boat. I will not even get on my soap box about the joys of being rafted when it comes to either being the one who has to walk across all the rafted together boats or being the first boat to which all the other boats are attached…So it was with smugness and a sense of frugality that we passed Bobby’s Fish Camp shortly after leaving our anchorage that was located just a few miles upstream.
I am often chided for being naïve about many things but I really did not understand why someone did not just build another marina between Demopolis and Mobile. Having heard the rumors about Bobby’s Fish Camp, I figured that whoever developed a new marina (or at least a posh transient dock with a fuel tank) would make a gazillion dollars and quickly be able to recover all costs of developing the area. While at the Demopolis Yacht Basin social hour days earlier, I expressed this opinion to several seasoned Tenn-Tom travelers. After they stopped choking with laughter and regained their composure, they explained to me that the Alabama waterways are still trying to find their way as they meander through the state.
The river banks are subject to erosion unlike anything seen thus far and the rivers are never the same year to year or even month to month. The “silting in” along with the movement of the water and the way the shorelines recreate themselves makes it impossible for development. Dredging could never keep pace in a cost effective manner with the rapid changes of the waterways. The creation of the Tenn-Tom Waterway, by connecting the Tennessee and Tombigbee Rivers, is something that Mother Nature is still trying to decide how to handle. We all know that she ALWAYS has the last word and I think she is still pondering this situation.
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