Hernando Beach is a network of canals cut into the coast off Shoal Line Boulevard, with houses backing onto the water and boats behind most of them. It is a residential community and a working waterfront at the same time, which is a combination that has largely disappeared elsewhere on this coast.
The water is shallow
This is the defining feature of boating on the Nature Coast and the thing that surprises people who learned to boat somewhere else. The Gulf here shelves out very gradually. You can be a long way from shore and still be in a few feet of water, and grass flats and limestone rock come up without much warning.
Local boaters run these waters on tide charts, not on optimism. Getting out and back is often a question of when rather than whether.
Know the tide before you leave the dock. On a strong low, channels that were comfortable in the morning are not passable in the afternoon. Running aground on limestone does real damage to a lower unit and to the bottom.
What people fish for
The flats and the nearshore rock hold redfish, spotted seatrout and snook in the warmer months, with grouper and other bottom species further out. Scalloping season draws boats up and down this coast in summer, though the productive grounds shift year to year.
Regulations, seasons and size limits change. Check current Florida Fish and Wildlife rules for the specific species and zone before you keep anything.
Bayport, at the end of the road
North of Hernando Beach, Cortez Boulevard runs west until it stops at Bayport, a small county park with a boat ramp, a pier and a view. It was a real port in the nineteenth century. Now it is one of the quieter places in the county to watch the sun go down over the Gulf.
Cover photo: Wknight94 talk / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0). Source.
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