Here’s a novel suggestion for a Labor Day weekend getaway: take a three-day food, art and outdoors tour of Greece. No, not the European islands, but the Florida town that’s most like Greece …
Small, weird-looking, but very tasty –even raw–and very easy to capture. Only available in the summer and early fall and never in a seafood market. You and your family must be hunter/gatherers …
Most visitors to Florida’s central Gulf coast make a beeline for its beautiful sandy beaches, but they might want to consider taking a day trip to the region’s largest natural area– Brooker …
Standing on a wooden treetop platform about 25 feet high, I am about to zip across the forest on a thin metal cable. Secure in my climbing harness and tethered to the tree by a double tweezle clip system, …
Despite its name, Lake Tarpon on Central Florida’s Gulf coast is best known for its outsized largemouth bass– not the leaping ‘silver king’. Rated one of the Sunshine State’s …
Casting a MirrOdine suspending plug to a submerged spoil island near the mouth of the Anclote River near Tarpon Springs, I wasn’t too optimistic that I’d catch anything. The incoming tide …
[Tarpon Springs, FL.–] A school of small tarpon rolled maddeningly on the surface of the Spring Bayou in the center of the Gulf Coast Florida town named for these irascible gamefish. Captain …
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![](mailto:?subject=Join A Live Summertime Easter Egg Hunt in Florida’s Big Bend&body=Small, weird-looking, but very tasty --even raw--and very easy to capture. Only available in the summer and early fall and never in a seafood market. You and your family must be hunter/gatherers to harvest them. They're bay scallops-- the premier mollusk of Florida's Gulf coast Big Bend region. And there's still plenty of time left to catch your share.
"So far, the season's been excellent," said Steinhatchee charterboat captain Bob Erdman. "Limits every day in three to four feet of water."
Erdman wasn't kidding. Last week, he and wife Carole guided my friend Kyle Stewart and me to gather our boat limit of eight gallons. It took us a little bit longer than last year because the region's scallop counts are down, but that just extended the fun.
The captain opted for the scallop grounds about five miles north of the mouth of the Steinhatchee River. His reasoning was simple: thousands of hunters have been plucking the grass beds to the south since the season opened on June 16, so hunting north might produce bigger shellfish.
As usual, Erdman was right. Snorkeling above the mixed turtle and manatee grass with mask and fins, I didn't spy as many of the little flying saucer-looking animals as last summer, but the ones I found were definitely larger with barnacle-encrusted shells.
"Those may be last year's scallops," Erdman said.
Harvesting them couldn't be easier. You just reach down and pick them up. Their weak escape attempts consist of clapping their double shells together clumsily. This is basically an underwater Easter egg hunt where the 'eggs' sometimes try in vain to get away. Kids as young as five can do it.
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Best places to hunt are in mixed patches of sand and grass where the grayish-white shells are easiest to spot. Sometimes they'll be nestled in the sand; other times, you'll find them perched on blades of grass. Erdman advises scouring the bay bottom closely for the ridged shell's profile.
The hunt itself is entertaining even if you don't spot scallops every two minutes. You'll encounter schools of mullet and pinfish, sea stars, and occasionally a stingray. I came upon a small ray while hunting; it bolted in the opposite direction when it saw me.
A few safety tips: boats must display a red-and-white diver-down flag while scalloping and divers must stay within 300 feet of it in open water and within 100 feet in a river, inlet or channel. Boaters must slow to idle speed when they draw close to the flag.
The bag limit is two gallons of whole scallops or one pint of meat per person, with a maximum of ten gallons whole or 1/2 gallon of meat per vessel. The season runs through Sept. 10 in the Steinhatchee area. If you plan to hunt in the St. Joseph Bay area to the north, the season opens July 25 through Sept. 10. In the popular Homosassa - Crystal River area, the season opened July 1 and closes Sept. 24.
To book a scalloping trip with captain Bob Erdman, call 352-356-2554. Rental boats and accommodations are available at Good Times Motel and Marina (352-498-8088) or Sea Hag Marina & the Shacks at Sea Hag (352-498-3008). Both facilities also are staffed with scallop cleaners who charge $7-$8 per pound. Have your scallops prepared and served with an array of sides at Kathi's Krab Shack (352-498-0605) or do it yourself. Hint: cook them anyway you want-- just don't overcook them.
For a complete rundown on scallop seasons and regulations in Florida, go to <a href="http://www.MyFWC.com/Fishing">MyFWC.com/Fishing</a> and click on "Saltwater Fishing", then "Recreational Regulations" and "Bay Scallops". https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/join-a-live-summertime-easter-egg-hunt-in-floridas-big-bend/){kind=link}
 to double black diamond (most difficult). Instead of a guide clipping your cables and demonstrating each element, you do everything yourself. If you have a problem or a question, just call out to a staffer for advice or --if you're really too scared to swing through the trees--someone will climb up and escort you down.
Even though I stuck to the green and yellow courses during my visit, I found the experience exhilarating and fun. I could understand why a 12-year-old from the neighborhood who the staff calls an unpaid intern visits here twice a week for his three-hour workout.
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After airborne exercise, I headed back to Tarpon Springs-- stopping en route for a little refreshment at the Florida Estate Winery in Land O'Lakes, not far from TreeHoppers. It's a popular waypoint for many wannabe Tarzans and Janes.
For more information about TreeHoppers, visit <a href="http://www.treehoppers.com">www.treehoppers.com</a> or call 813-381-5400.
On the day after my swing through TreeHoppers, I visited a very different kind of park--Key Vista Nature Park in tiny Holiday near Tarpon Springs. This quiet, 100-acre reserve of mostly sand pine uplands is bordered by the Gulf of Mexico and Rocky Creek, inviting visitors to fish, swim, hike, and picnic. I walked most of its 1 1/2 miles of trails and climbed the observation tower for a scenic view of the lighthouse at Anclote Key Preserve State Park.
Key Vista is best known for bird watching; with more than 220 documented species, it's a must-stop on the Great Florida Birding and Wildlife Trail.
Save for a nesting osprey cheeping in the pines, I saw few birds on my afternoon walk, but I did get to eavesdrop on an amorous gopher tortoise trying to get lucky with its partner in the scrub.
For more information on Key Vista Nature Park, call 727-938-2598. https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/a-tale-of-two-parks-near-tarpon-springs/){kind=link}
![](mailto:?subject=Guy Harvey Outpost Coming to Tarpon Springs&body=[Tarpon Springs, FL.--] A school of small tarpon rolled maddeningly on the surface of the Spring Bayou in the center of the Gulf Coast Florida town named for these irascible gamefish. Captain Craig Lahr and I cast live pinfish on Styrofoam floats toward the happily-frolicking school whenever it surfaced, but our baits were ignored. Lahr tried a few casts with a Deceiver-style fly, hoping its soft presentation might do the trick. But that didn't work either.
Finally, we removed the floats and simply free-lined the pinfish in the direction the tarpon were moving. At first, nothing happened. But then my line started peeling furiously off the spinning reel, so I clicked the bail shut and quickly reeled up the slack and.....nothing -- except for a dead, crushed pinfish still on the circle hook.
But then, that's tarpon fishing wherever in the world you may pursue them.
Fortunately, tarpon are by no means the only fish to chase in and around the eponymous Tarpon Springs.
"Snook, redfish, sheepshead, flounder, black drum, jack crevalle, ladyfish, sea trout, bass, bream, speckled perch," Lahr, a 20-year veteran Gulf Coast light-tackle guide, said as he ran out of fingers ticking them all off.
Lahr loves to fish the Anclote River, which flows for about 30 miles from a swamp in Pasco County west through Tarpon Springs to the Gulf of Mexico near the tiny town of Holiday. Depending on tide and rainfall, Lahr can maneuver his 21-foot bay boat some 15 miles upriver before the waters become too shallow to navigate. Kayaks and canoes can venture even further inland where the waters turn from salty to fresh. Nearby, there's Lake Tarpon where Florida's unofficial state-record largemouth bass weighing 19.6 pounds was caught by Riley Witt in 1961.
"When you get bad weather and it's cold, you can come in here and it will be warmer and there will be fish in here," Lahr said of the Anclote. "The river doesn't get rough."
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Fishing was a tad slow the day we explored the area, owing to feeble tides and passage of a cold front. But we caught and released redfish and catfish using live shrimp and pinfish, spied a large school of snook around a marina dock that was apparently afflicted with lockjaw, and of course sparred unsuccessfully with the baby tarpon.
Besides the anticipation of fish, the Anclote presented a non-stop wildlife show-- ospreys cheeping from their brushy nests in the trees; flocks of pelicans gliding overhead; a great blue heron that shadowed us for a while and then managed to steal a pinfish from the live well; a herd of manatees that joined the tarpon at the Spring Bayou.
And all that was before we headed three miles offshore to picturesque Anclote Key Preserve State Park, which harbors colonies of nesting birds, pristine beaches and a historic lighthouse.
The Anclote's working waterfront known as the Sponge Docks flows right through the middle of Tarpon Springs. It is where commercial fishers and spongers tie up their boats; throngs of tourists browse dozens of gift and antique shops; and restaurants serve authentic Greek cuisine and fresh seafood. Plenty of gamefish lurk right under those busy docks, but enticing them to bite is another story.
In the winter of 2017, visitors and residents will have a new base camp from which to explore the region: the Guy Harvey Outpost RV Resort just north of Tarpon Springs in Pasco County. Developed in conjunction with Elite Resorts, the $15 million, 46-acre project will feature 340 brick-paved RV lots and the full slate of resort-style amenities located a stone's throw from the Anclote River and the Gulf of Mexico.
Yet one more good excuse for me to make a return trip and try to get one over on those uncooperative tarpon.
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