Keaton Beach is different. Unique. One of a kind. Why? It has no rivers, therefore very few oyster bars—just endless, grassy shallow flats and clear water. As you go offshore, lush seagrass grows in water as deep as 14 feet.

Yes, there is a beach at Keaton Beach. It doesn’t rival those of the Panhandle, but the palm trees grow within 30 feet of salt water. Don’t bring your surf board, because there isn’t any surf, and it takes a strong swimmer to make it to shoulder-deep water.

Our acquaintance with Keaton Beach goes back a long way. Our friends Lloyd and Loretta Myrick had what was then a big boat, a 24-foot Stamas with an inboard/outboard engine. He liked to put in at Steinhatchee and go directly to the deep grass out from Keaton Beach. There was much less boat traffic there than either Spotty Bottom or Seahorse Reef.

My fishing log reports that on our best day, we got eight Spanish mackerel, a number of bluefish that we didn’t keep, two kingfish and a cobia, plus the ubiquitous ladyfish, blue runners and other throwbacks. We trolled a mix of spoons and jigs. My log records that I got a strike from a big king that apparently came up from the bottom, grabbed my jig on the way up, and made a beautiful greyhounding jump, cutting the line as it landed.

Today, Keaton Beach is noted for the size and abundance of its spotted seatrout. If you even want to place in a trout tournament you need one over five pounds. I was initiated into Keaton Beach trout fishing with Capt. Pat McGriff, who has 32 years behind him as a guide. That day the weather was not good, with strong northeast winds and occasional showers.

We idled down the main canal, past the 150-foot wooden walkway that ends with a fishing pier in about five feet of water. McGriff commented, "That’s an ATB fishing pier—the people are after Anything That Bites."

Past the pier, a well-marked dredged channel leads boaters to navigable water. We went northwest, parallel to the shoreline, about 10 miles out from Spring Warrior Creek, where the creek dumps tannic water into the Gulf. We fished from four to five feet of water, using live pinfish under popping corks.

The long ride gave me plenty of time to ask questions, starting with where he gets his pinfish. "I catch most of them with hook and line, using a light spinning outfit with a 1/4-ounce sinker, 10-pound line, and a number 16 Mustad 3191 hook baited with a piece of chicken gizzard."

I said, "Why don’t you put out a pinfish trap?" He shook his head, "A trap is not reliable. Some days you have 75, and sometimes you have seven. If you charter you’ve got to have a reliable source of bait. If I have 25 or 30 to start with, I can stay with my charters and keep them supplied with bait."

We stopped about 1.5 miles out from Spring Warrior Creek, and he said, "Now, we’re catching our fish in four or five feet of water. Water temperature is running about 85, and the fish are trying to spawn. The trout don’t seem to get in water any less than four feet, where the water would be even warmer."

He rigs a spinning outfit with 10-pound line, running to a bead and a duo-lock snap. To its lower swivel he ties a mono leader of about 30 inches, and finally a longshank 6/0 hook.

The size of the hook surprised me. His explanation was, "Using live bait you need a hook large enough to penetrate the bait and still leave room to hook the fish. I like the long shank because it makes unhooking the fish easier. Fish hooked with Kahle or circle hooks are difficult to unhook."

He hooked a pinfish through the eye sockets and whanged out a cast that put the bobber a good 100 feet from the boat.

"When you use a popping cork," he said, "the rod should be pulled from a downward position. You use the water as a resonator to give the cork the most noise it can make. If your rodtip is high, you’re pulling the cork up instead of into the water, and it doesn’t leave the bait in relatively the same position.

"Always use fresh baits. The big trout we’re after are wary and spooky, and you must have enough distance around the boat so that the trout is not aware of your existence. If you can’t fish outside that circle you’re not going to get a big trout."

To get a popping cork’s best effect, he recommends a back-handed wrist-snapping motion of the rod (translation, hold the rod with both hands; push forward with the bottom hand, and at the same time pull backward with the other, always with the rod pointed downward).

Popping corks make a sound similar to that of a school of whitebait being flushed or spooked by a predator. A trout would rather go to a whole school of whitebait than only one, and the bobber makes that sound. He says, "Make the cast, and immediately pop the cork three times and wait 30 seconds. If there is a trout nearby I want it to find the bait. Pop it again, twice, then wait 20 seconds; finally pop it once and wait 10 seconds. If there is no strike, reel in and cast again."

As he spoke he caught a 19-inch trout, and we agreed that on this day we would release all the fish.

The appearance of a pinfish does not escape his attention. "Look at your pinfish to see if it’s in good shape." He held up two, one stressed, the other in good shape. He indicated the one stressed and said, "This one is barred and bold so he’s too old," and that one was tossed overboard. "An older trout will strike a bait near its head, because it knows that is the kill zone."

McGriff never anchors, preferring to drift. He throws in the direction of the drift. When the bobber gets within 30 feet of the boat he reels in and casts again. When he wants to make another drift he looks at his chartplotter, calls up the previous track, and makes sure he does not again drift through the same water.

Using seven pinfish, the captain caught five trout, all of legal size. When I started to fish, McGriff refreshed our supply of pinfish, and that was a revelation to me.

From the cooler he got a chicken gizzard. "Make a straight edge cut on the gristle side of the gizzard, with a very sharp knife. Cut a pennant-shaped piece of the gristle. Trim off the red meat. When you finish you have a prism, a geometric triangle, pyramid, or pennant-shaped bait, or dart. You put the size 16 hook at the center of the wider part of the pennant, no more than the gap of the hook, so the point of the hook is exposed."

Pinfish, especially the 2- to 3-inchers, rained into the livewell. I timed him mentally, and he was putting a pinfish into the livewell at a rate of one every 30 seconds. With the luxuriant grass under the boat, apparently pinfish were everywhere.

This was summertime, and I was curious about trout fishing in cold weather. He said, "On a pretty day in January or February you ought to come to Keaton Beach. We fish with surface plugs, and big trout just wallow all over them. It’s great fishing. Not all of the trout head for the rivers and creeks."

My bobber disappeared. I reeled the slack out of the line and set the hook—nothing there. McGriff said, "When your bobber goes under, count one second per inch of the size of the bait before you take up the slack and set the hook."

I asked what tide he preferred. "Once the tide comes in to a certain depth, the trout feed. As the water floods in and gets to a different depth, the other fish, ladyfish, Spanish mackerel and bluefish, take over the bite."

We caught ladyfish and a couple of 4-pound bluefish, but McGriff treated them as undesirable; he wanted trout. "When the tide reaches high and the current stops, it’s difficult to catch fish. With the current of the outgoing tide action starts again."

McGriff believes in the convenience of using swivels and duolock snaps, and pooh-poohs the oft-recommended practice of learning all the knots so as to have no fish-scaring wire. With just one quick maneuver, he changed his rigging from live baits to plastic shrimptails. He caught the best trout of our day, one of more than three pounds, on the plastic. The only difference in the technique was that he set the hook instantly when the bobber went down.

I lost count of the numbers of trout we caught, but it was more than a dozen. None of them was under the 15-inch legal length.

With the tide high we went much closer to Spring Warrior Creek, where there was considerable rock and redfish habitat. We both threw copper-colored spoons for awhile, without connecting with a fish.

McGriff said, "On the way in there’s a hole that has about 10 feet of water and some rocks. Would you like to try that?"

Yes! That was my kind of fishing, a jig sweetened with synthetic bait, dropped to the bottom and twitched along. We caught the usual rock-lovers, black seabass, tomtates, porgies and sand perch. With the optimism of long-time anglers, however, each of us was sure that at any time a good-sized flounder would strike and put up its strange, up and down battle. It didn’t happen.

The sun had come out, towering clouds that beautified the Florida landscape, taking the place of the mountains of Colorado or California. The trip back to Keaton Beach was a delight, with just enough chop to make one keep his back straight. On the trout grounds we had seen one other boat. The weather may have kept others at home, but it is evident that weekday fishing pressure is light.

Several weeks later fishing buddy Ed Sapp and I trailered his boat to Keaton Beach. The ramp is excellent for boats of any size, with a fee of $5. From there to the outside markers is a long idle.

We went northward until we could see Spring Warrior Creek, to the area that I thought Capt. McGriff and I fished. The difference was that the water was dirty, after heavy rains. With spinning tackle and a jig with plastic tail Ed caught a trout on his very first cast, but it was a yearling, not a trophy.

I fished with a casting rod, with a jig and artificial sweetening.

We caught a fish now and then, nothing worth a photo, but we did prove that Keaton Beach trout can be caught with artificial lures. With his flats boat we ran to the mouth of Spring Warrior Creek. Ed poled me about, exploring water that reeked of redfish, and I finally caught one, a red big enough to measure, but not to keep.

We spotted a "platform" toward Keaton Beach, that has a big sign reading, "ROCK." It is indeed a rock, truck size, with other debris like car tires and concrete blocks, as if someone had started to make an artificial reef.

We thought it might shelter a cobia, but Ed dragged a nice Spanish mack-erel out of the debris instead of a cobia.

Ed and I went home with the feel-ing that maybe the two of us aren’t the best trout fishermen around. That was confirmed by Daniel Basta, a youngster of 16 who fished at Keaton Beach a short time after we did, and caught a colossal trout of 8.19 pounds. He was wading in shallow water, saw the huge fish, and tossed a surface plug its way.

Scallop Season Opens Soon

Keaton Beach and sister city Steinhatchee are ground zero for bay scallop season, which opens July 1 and runs through September 10. The tasty little shellfish are abundant on the extensive, clear grassflats that rim this coastline. On a good concentration, snorkelers have little trouble filling the 2 gallons-whole per-person limit.

It’s a popular activity, in this region what lobster season is to the Florida Keys. As a consequence, hotel and rental reservations fill up well in advance. The Perry-Taylor County Chamber of Commerce (850-584-5366; www.taylorcountychamber.com) can put you in touch with accommodations. In Keaton Beach proper, one option is the Keaton Beach Marina and Motel (850-578-2897), with rooms, fuel, boat rentals, charters and boat lift. With the recent real estate boom, there seems to be a growing number of rental properties in the area, such as Eagles Nest in nearby Dekle Beach (850-584-7666). Steinhatchee has several small hotels and rentals, such as Steinhatchee Landing (352-498-3513).

Dredging Halted—For Now

A developer’s proposal to dredge more than 36 acres of Keaton Beach seagrasses has received a thumbs-down from permitting authorities.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, notorious for rubber-stamping similar permits, recently denied the Magnolia Bay Marina and Resort project.

The project, proposed by Secret Promise Ltd. and Dr. J. Crayton Pruitt, would have dredged a 2-mile channel through the Big Bend Seagrasses Aquatic Preserve, and altered more than 100 acres of adjacent wetlands. A broad coalition of local anglers and environmentalists voiced opposition, as did a virtual who’s who of state and federal agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and Environmental Protection Agency.

Florida Sportsman first spotlighted the Magnolia Bay dredging proposal in April 2006.