As of now if you haven’t heard about the red tide in Florida you either don’t watch the news (lucky you ) or you live under a rock. Im going to assume most have heard at least something about it. Here’s my firsthand account as of today. There is a large swath of nasty water from 4 miles offshore that extends roughly 15 miles out, it is constantly moving but that seems to be the concentration of it off the clearwater area. I have been running charters along the beach and offshore of it, and the fishing has been great, no smell, no dead fish and good action. The water past 15 miles offshore is a blue and clean as I’ve ever seen and the nearshore water is teeming with life. So, in the past week we’ve been fishing the clean areas obviously. By no means am I saying there is no red tide in our area, but I am seeing that it is patchy and is easily worked around in terms of fishing. The fish we catch and consume are 100% safe to eat as they are actively feeding and we are not in red tide water. It is sad to see the areas that are hard hit with dead fish and marine life that never stood a chance. With the first few cold fronts of the season forecasted within the next couple weeks I am optimistic that it will kill the red tide and clean it up everywhere. Fingers crossed!!