suwannee
It’s Not Too Late To Prepare For the Big Bend’s 2017 Scallop Harvest
It’s June and there’s just another month until the fun begins! New dates apply for the 2017 Florida Recreational Bay Scallop Harvest, particularly in all of Dixie County and part of Taylor County. Those two counties are the nexus of the harvest on our Natural North Florida Gulf coast. “The 2017 bay scallop season for …
Second To Only The MIghty Suwannee River–Natural North Florida’s “Minor” Rivers
It’s tough when you have to say that some of our Natural North Florida Rivers are “minor”, but the 240-mile-long Suwannee River is hard to keep out of first place. It’s long, it’s free-flowing with no dams or obstructions, and it’s beautiful. But there are others in our region that are smaller, but no less …
New “User-Friendly” Dates Announced For Big Bend 2017 Recreational Bay Scallop Season
In recent years, Florida’s Recreational Bay Scallop harvest rules were fairly simple. You could “catch” your limit of these tasty morsels from the Pasco/Hernando County line to the Mexico Beach Canal from July 1 until September 24th. Some places were better than others with regards to the size and number of scallops available. But now, …
Your Guide to 55 Miles of Fun Along Natural North Florida’s Gilchrist Blueway
For a Natural North Florida county that has no Gulf of Mexico coastline, Gilchrist County sure has lots of waterfront! In fact, few of our area’s coastal counties have shoreline to match Gilchrist’s 55 miles along the Suwannee, Santa Fe and Ichetucknee rivers. The Suwannee River begins several hundred miles from the Gulf in Georgia’s …
Fishing October’s Lower Tides on the Gulf Coast
One thing I can’t predict is the weather or wind, and it turned out that we had a fair amount of the latter this past weekend when Hurricane Matthew chewed up Florida’s east coast. Big storms like Matthew produce winds on both coasts. However, it looked like our fish didn’t really care. Trout and reds …
Florida’s 2016/2017 Stone Crab Season Opens October 15th–Great Eating Ahead
The result of stone crabbers’ hard work–a plate of mighty fine eatin’ There’s nothing more tasty than a Florida stone crab. And some of the best come from the ports of Natural North Florida. Florida’s stone crab population is highly regulated by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). Not only do regulations apply …
Warmer Water and Air Temperatures Drive Snook North Into Florida’s Nature Coast
Snook are one of Florida’s most popular gamefish Traditionally, in years past, West Florida’s snook population remained south of our Natural North Florida waters. That was largely due to cold winters, which either run snook into warm residential canals on the upper suncoast, or kill them outright. However, winters over the last ten or twelve …
Natural North Florida Overcomes Hurricane Hermine
Hurricane Hermine comes ashore on Florida’s Big Bend, September 1, 2016 with minimal hurricane force winds. We’re a tough, resilient bunch in Natural North Florida. When Hurricane Hermine hit just east of St. Marks in Wakulla and Jefferson counties on September 1, 2016 it had been a full decade since we’d had a similar event. …
Our Seagrasses, And What They Mean To Big Bend Anglers (And Snorkelers!)
The largest natural preserve, our Big Bend Seagrasses Aquatic Preserve is huge–almost a million square acres. And it’s a big part of the reason that our Gulf coastal fishery is so good. It stretches from Waccasass Bay in Levy County to St. Marks in Wakulla County and serves as a nursery for small bait fish, …
“Mainline”: The Back Roads of Dixie County, Florida
Originally cleared years ago as logging roads in rural Dixie County, the Dixie Mainline and the Bowlegs Mainline are still a functional, albeit sometimes rough, set of roads. Now they shortcut the long travel between Steinhatchee and Horseshoe Beach and Horseshoe Beach and Suwannee. And they cross some beautiful backwaters and forests. For many years, …