A Florida Family Legacy: Honest John's Fish Camp

Some of the best adventures on the Treasure Coast cost almost nothing and reward you with a genuine slice of Old Florida. Just north of the Sebastian Inlet, tucked along a quiet bend of the Indian River Lagoon, Honest John's Fish Camp is exactly that kind of place. Drive up A1A, turn onto Old Florida Trail, and you arrive at a working fish camp where the pace slows, the water shimmers with wildlife, and more than a century of family history sits right on the shoreline of Mullet Creek.

A Homestead Rooted in 1887

The story of Honest John's begins in 1887, when the land was claimed as a government homestead. Robert T. Smith and his brother Charley had traveled south from Georgia to build a new life in the years following the Civil War. They worked the land as farmers, coaxing sweet potatoes, beans, collards and eventually citrus from the sandy Florida soil. Robert, known to the family as Uncle Bob, bought out his brother's share, married Bessie Wells, and in 1899 built a two-story cracker house that still stands today. Constructed of heart pine and set on coquina pilings, it remains on its original site, a textbook example of the classic Florida cracker "I" house and a piece of history documented in the National Archives.

The Man Behind the Name

Honest John was the third of eight children, and he had little patience for farming. Bucking family tradition, he turned to the water and became a commercial fisherman, eventually lending his name to the camp that endures today. Yet for all of John's skill on the water, it was Uncle Bob who set the camp's legendary sea trout record at 13 pounds, 4 ounces. That love of fishing runs deep in the family. John's relative Barbara Smith Arthur became a celebrated angler in her own right, holding multiple International Game Fish Association world records for sea trout along with recognition for black drum. The camp has stayed in the family's hands across the generations, a rare thing along a coastline that has changed so dramatically.

Plan Your Visit

Today, Honest John's Fish Camp sits on Mullet Creek along the Indian River Lagoon, a short drive north of the Sebastian Inlet in southern Brevard County. It is a place to rent a small motorboat, kayak or canoe and glide out into one of the most biodiverse estuaries in North America, where dolphins, manatees, wading birds and roseate spoonbills are regular company. Whether you come to fish, paddle or simply soak in the atmosphere of a genuine Florida fish camp, you leave with a deeper appreciation for the families who have called this shoreline home for well over a hundred years.

Stacy Cook
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