WATER & COAST
Holmes Creek
Holmes County · Panhandle & Emerald Coast
The creek the county shares its name with, entering Florida from south Alabama a few miles north of Graceville.
ABOUT THIS PLACE
This is the upper end of a stream that runs fifty-six miles before it reaches the Choctawhatchee River west of Ebro. Up here the water is brown and acid, carrying very little mineral, because it is draining farm and forest rather than coming out of limestone. That changes further south: once the creek crosses into Washington County the springs feed in, and the same water turns clear and cold. Holmes County therefore gets the working half of the creek rather than the postcard half, and the paddling and fishing here are quieter for it. Channel catfish, flathead catfish and bream are what people take out of it. Cypress, water tupelo, sweetbay and pawpaw line the banks, with pickerelweed and duck potato in the shallows. The creek holds twenty-two species of snail across eighteen genera, three of which live in this water and nowhere else on earth, which is the kind of fact that decides whether a stream gets protected
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