Ask 1stFlorida
Surf fishing works where the beach has structure - a trough, a bar, a cut, an inlet - rather than a flat sheet of sand.
The inlets are the reliable ones: Sebastian Inlet in Brevard County, Fort Pierce Inlet in St Lucie, Matanzas Inlet in St Johns County and Jupiter Inlet in Palm Beach. For open beach, the undeveloped stretches hold fish because nobody is swimming through them - Canaveral National Seashore at Playalinda and Apollo Beach, Cape San Blas and St George Island on the Panhandle, and Huguenot Memorial Park in Duval County, where you can drive to the water line and fish out of the back of the truck. Pompano run in spring and fall, whiting all year.
Brevard County. $8 per vehicle, open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, at the southern end of the county. Two jetties reach into the Atlantic and the breaks off them - First Peak and Monster Hole - bring surfers from outside Florida.
Open the guide →St. Lucie County. A half mile of beach at 905 Shorewinds Drive, open 8 a.m. until sundown, 365 days a year. Entry is $6 a vehicle for up to eight people, $4 for a single occupant or a motorcycle and $2 on foot or by bicycle.
Open the guide →St. Johns County. At the south end of the county, beside Fort Matanzas, and run by the National Park Service rather than the county. The northern access has 19 parking spaces with two accessible, seasonal portable restrooms, a ramp shared by people and vehicles, and lifeguards from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
Open the guide →Brevard County. Undeveloped shoreline inside Canaveral National Seashore, north of Titusville. A vehicle entrance fee applies. Nothing is built behind the dune and there is no commercial frontage anywhere along it. One of the best rocket launch viewpoints in the county, and it closes around major launches and in bad weather, so check before driving out.
Open the guide →Volusia County. The northern district of Canaveral National Seashore, entered from South Atlantic Avenue one mile south of Bethune Beach. Entry is $25 a vehicle and covers seven consecutive days at any park entrance; a motorcycle is $20, a walker or cyclist aged 16 and over is $15, and an annual pass for the park is $45.
Open the guide →Gulf County. A narrow peninsula about twenty minutes from Port St. Joe that runs out and then curves back around St. Joseph Bay, one of the least populated and richest coastal ecosystems in the state.
Open the guide →Franklin County. A 22-mile barrier island with Gulf water on one side and bay marsh on the other, good for swimming, paddling and fishing, with a resort community and places to stay along it.
Open the guide →Duval County. 10980 Heckscher Drive, and a beach you can drive onto - 5 miles an hour, four-wheel drive advised for the soft crossing, and at your own risk. $5 a vehicle for up to six people and $3 on foot or by bicycle, half price for active duty and veterans.
Open the guide →Where the charter fleets are. On the Panhandle, Destin in Okaloosa County has one of the largest charter fleets in the country because the hundred-fathom curve comes closer to shore there than anywhere else in the Gulf, with Panama City in Bay County and Pensacola in Escambia close behind for red snapper and grouper.
Boca Grande Pass, between Gasparilla Island in Lee County and Charlotte County to the north, is the name everyone knows - the fish stack up in the deep pass in May and June and the boats work it shoulder to shoulder.
Snook sit against structure in moving water, so the inlets, bridges, jetties and passes are where you find them.
Have a different question? Ask 1stFlorida →