Out There: Let the Gulf Calm Down. The Good Week Starts Monday.

I checked the marine forecast at 5 this morning, which is how I know nobody should be launching a kayak into the Gulf today. Here's the week in one sentence: the weekend belongs to the rain, and Monday belongs to everyone else.

First, the Gulf

Hurricane Isaias is headed for the northern Gulf Coast. As of the National Hurricane Center's 5 a.m. advisory, landfall is expected tonight or early Saturday somewhere between Ocean Springs, Mississippi, and the Bay/Gulf county line in the Florida Panhandle. If you have people up there, today is a good day to call them.

Down here, the NWS Tampa Bay local statement expects little to no impact for Sarasota and Manatee. The exception is the water:

• High rip current risk at Manatee and Sarasota County beaches through Saturday evening, per the NWS surf zone forecast. Look at the Gulf. Don't get in it.
• Small craft advisory for the bays and the Gulf from 8 a.m. Friday through 8 p.m. Saturday. The coastal waters forecast for Englewood to Tarpon Springs has seas building to 6 to 9 feet tonight, occasionally 11, with the bays rough.
• Waterspouts: at 6:52 a.m. Friday, NWS radar had a line of storms capable of producing waterspouts about 20 nautical miles west of Siesta Key, moving north at 20 knots, and the office put a special marine warning on the coastal waters until 8 a.m. More storms are in the forecast through Sunday. If you're on the water and one shows up, head for safe harbor and put the life jackets on.
• Monday: north wind 5 to 10 knots, seas around 2 feet, light chop in the bays. Hold that thought.

The weekend pick: Celery Fields, 9 to noon

The Sarasota Audubon Nature Center at the Celery Fields is open again for the season, and through Nov. 1 it keeps short hours: Friday, Saturday and Sunday only, 9 a.m. to noon, at 999 Center Road. The outdoor space is always open.

Audubon calls the Celery Fields one of the "birdiest" places on the Great Florida Birding Trail. It is also the county's stormwater treatment area, which makes it the one place in Sarasota where a wet weekend means everything is working as designed. The Nature Center has a covered patio and a water bottle refill station. Bring a rain jacket, check the radar before you leave, and if you hear thunder, go inside. The birds have their own plan for that.

NWS has Saturday at 60 percent, with storms scattered before 3 p.m., and Sunday at 80 percent, widespread before 2 p.m. So it's not a perfect plan. It's the best one available.

Got kids? Myakka River State Park runs Junior Ranger Saturdays from 10 a.m. to noon this Saturday, a ranger-led program built around Junior Ranger challenges.

Then Monday shows up

The NWS forecast for Sarasota turns the page Monday: mostly sunny, high near 88, north-northeast wind, low around 70. Tuesday is sunny, 87, low 69. The forecast discussion says drier air moves in and dew points drop into the 60s for much of the week.

It is still 88 degrees. I'm aware. But it's a dry 88, and around here that's a season.

What's biting, and what's legal

Capt. Rick Grassett's October forecast for CB's Saltwater Outfitters has snook moving from the passes and beaches to inside waters on the way to their winter spots, staging around docks and bridges in the ICW and on shallow flats. Redfish should be plentiful on the flats, in smaller schools than they ran in August and September. Look for trout on the deep grass flats of Sarasota Bay, sometimes mixed with blues, Spanish mackerel or pompano, and juvenile tarpon in creeks and canals early in the month. His sign-off is worth repeating: limit your kill, don't kill your limit.

The FWC calendar is busier than the fish this week:

• Gulf red snapper reopened today for private recreational anglers in Gulf state and federal waters, daily through Oct. 22, then on scheduled weekends. 16 inches minimum, 2 per person, and you need the State Reef Fish Angler designation. The Gulf is forecast at 6 to 9 feet tonight. The snapper will be there Monday.
• Gulf greater amberjack closes after Tuesday, Oct. 13. 34 inches fork length, 1 per person. Monday and Tuesday are forecast around 2 feet in the coastal waters, which is either a coincidence or the Gulf apologizing.
• Gag grouper in Gulf state waters closed Oct. 1 for the rest of the year.
• Stone crab opens Thursday, Oct. 15. Claws only, 2 7/8 inches minimum, 1 gallon of claws per person or 2 gallons per vessel, whichever is less, and a 5-trap max. Anyone 16 or older needs the free recreational trap registration first.
• Snook is open in the Sarasota Bay region (State Road 64 down to near the Venice airport): 28 to 33 inches, 1 per day, hook and line only, snook permit required. The Myakka River falls in FWC's Charlotte Harbor region, where the season only reopened Oct. 1.
• Redfish in the Sarasota Bay region: 18 to 27 inches, 1 per person, 2 per vessel. Trout: 15 to 19 inches, 3 per person, with one over 19 allowed per vessel.

Red tide: FWC's Oct. 2 status report found only background concentrations in Sarasota County, with no fish kills or respiratory irritation reported. The next report is due Friday afternoon. Water temperature is in the lower 80s, per NWS.

Tides at Big Sarasota Pass

NOAA predictions for the Siesta Key, Big Sarasota Pass station, in feet above mean lower low water. One warning first: NWS says Isaias's swell can push water above predicted levels along the coast into Saturday, so treat Friday and Saturday's numbers as a minimum.

Day	Lows	Highs
Fri., Oct. 9	5:26 a.m. (0.5), 5:17 p.m. (0.9)	12:00 p.m. (1.9), 11:19 p.m. (2.2)
Sat., Oct. 10	6:11 a.m. (0.3), 5:41 p.m. (1.1)	12:51 p.m. (1.8), 11:37 p.m. (2.3)
Sun., Oct. 11	6:53 a.m. (0.2), 6:02 p.m. (1.2)	1:41 p.m. (1.7), 11:56 p.m. (2.4)
Mon., Oct. 12	7:33 a.m. (0.2), 6:22 p.m. (1.3)	2:31 p.m. (1.6)
Tue., Oct. 13	8:13 a.m. (0.2), 6:37 p.m. (1.4)	12:18 a.m. (2.4), 3:25 p.m. (1.6)
Wed., Oct. 14	8:58 a.m. (0.2), 6:47 p.m. (1.5)	12:45 a.m. (2.4), 4:30 p.m. (1.5)
Thu., Oct. 15	9:52 a.m. (0.3)	1:16 a.m. (2.3)
Fri., Oct. 16	10:59 a.m. (0.3)	1:54 a.m. (2.3)

The morning lows are the story: under a quarter foot Sunday through Wednesday, landing between 6:53 and 8:58 a.m., not long after sunrise. That's flats-wading time. By Wednesday the afternoon high and the evening low are less than an inch apart, and by Thursday the bay settles for one high and one low a day. Sandy has the Anna Maria City Pier numbers if you fish the north end.

Sunrise and sunset

From the U.S. Naval Observatory for Sarasota:

• Saturday: sunrise 7:27 a.m., sunset 7:06 p.m.
• Sunday: 7:28 a.m., 7:05 p.m.
• Monday: 7:28 a.m., 7:04 p.m.
• Next Friday, Oct. 16: 7:31 a.m., 7:00 p.m.

First light (civil twilight) starts around 7:04 a.m. this weekend, which is when the herons clock in. Sunset loses about a minute a night, and Sandy's sunset schedule has the rest of the year mapped out.

Wildlife

Sea turtle nesting season in Sarasota County runs May 1 through Oct. 31, so the lights-out rules have three weeks left. Saturday is the new moon (11:50 a.m. ET, per USNO), and the county's own turtle lighting flyer has the best test I know: if you can see your shadow on the beach during a new moon, a light somewhere is too bright. Do the test from the dry sand. The rip currents are still working Saturday night.

Out east, give the gators the whole bank and the herons a lot of room. Don't feed anything, including the heron who acts like you owe him.

Park and trail notes

• Myakka River State Park: 8 a.m. to sunset, $6 per vehicle. Drinking water is still unavailable at the park, so bring your own; the ranger station hands out bottled water free from 8 a.m. to sunset. The North Gate is open weekends and state holidays only, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The river itself read 5.72 feet at the NWS gauge at the park at 7 a.m. Friday, up about half a foot from Thursday, and the forecast has it near 6.7 feet by Sunday morning. That's above the 6.5-foot "action" stage and below the 7-foot minor flood mark. If you paddle it, the current will be doing more of the work than usual, which feels great until you turn around.
• Oscar Scherer State Park in Osprey is my Monday pick: 15 miles of trails, South Creek for paddling, and Florida scrub-jays, the only bird species found nowhere but Florida. 8 a.m. to sunset, $5 per vehicle, 1843 S. Tamiami Trail. Sunrise Monday is 7:28. The gate opens at 8. Nobody asked the scrub-jays.

One fun find: Angie Blunt and Bob

Angie Blunt posts Anna Maria Island almost every morning: sunrise off the docks by the Bridge Street Pier, snowy egrets lining Cortez Beach, two manatees surfacing nose to nose on the bay side. Her recurring star is Bob, a great blue heron. Here's Bob arriving before sunrise, squawking, and taking over what she calls an "unintentional 360° video."

Wow…such a dramatic sky before sunrise this morning. Unintentional 360° video when Bob the Great Blue Heron came squawking into the scene. I just had to follow him, lol. ~Docks by the Bridge Street Pier (9-29-26) ❤️ 📷 Angie Blunt #annamariaisland pic.x.com

— Angie Blunt (@smile1fish) September 29, 2026

See it on X if the video doesn't load. Video by Angie Blunt, @smile1fish.

Her photos are also the 2027 "Anna Maria Life: Through the Lens of Angie Blunt" calendar, and 100 percent of calendar donations go to Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch & Shorebird Monitoring. The suggested donation is $5. Pick one up at Lazy Turtle (314 Pine Ave., Anna Maria), Ginny & Jane E's (9807 Gulf Drive, Anna Maria), the Anna Maria Island Chamber of Commerce (5313 Gulf Drive, Holmes Beach) or Sea-renity Beach Spa & Bou-tiki (112 Bridge St., Bradenton Beach). It's her fourth year doing a calendar for Turtle Watch, and her Oct. 4 update had this one at almost $7,400.

I own six trail cams, as regular readers know, and not one of them has ever produced a heron with a name. Follow @smile1fish. Then go buy a calendar. Then wait for Monday like the rest of us.