Mr. Sargeant,

I recently read your column on the manatee zones in the South Shore, and just recently (Monday of this week) put my boat in at Little Cockroach Bay and did some fishing. I am confused of where the manatee zones are. According to the map on the FWC site, Little Manatee River is idle speed only or minimum wake, but the channel out from the ramp at Cockroach Bay was not on the map, nor wwere any of the flats near the shore from Cockroach Bay to Little Manatee.

But, according to the signs the channel out from Cockroach is 25 mph and anywhere outside that channel (north or south?) was minimum wake zones and it seemed to extend out a half-mile to mile from the coast all the way up to the Little Manatee/Apollo Beach area. The map did not have that, but the signs seemed to indicate that if I were to start out the channel from Cockroach, and make a right (north) toward Little Manatee, that was all min wake zone. The water is at most 2-3 feet deep in summer tides and about a foot deep in winter tides. I usually can get on plane (I have a tunnel hull skiff with jack plate) through there between land and the sandbar that extends out, but now it seems like all min wake zones. I am OK with that because a lot of people leave scars on the grass throughout there, but to call it a manatee zone is a joke. No way a manatee can swim in those shallow grass flats. Kind of odd that the channel has a 25 mph limit where the manatees possibly could swim. I am just wondering where I can get accurate info. The day was pretty windy, so I did not follow the channel all the way out to see what signs were posted at the 1/2 to mile from Cockroach north toward Little Manatee. I can tell you this, almost every boat that I saw was on plane through that area, so either I was obeying the law or not understanding it. Thanks, Tim

Tim: As it stands now, the Cockroach Bay channel from the ramp out to open water allows on-plane operation. However, both north and south there are a line of markers at the 6 foot contour, and on-plane operation is not permitted inside those markers. At the Little Manatee entry, on-plane operation to 25 mph is permitted through the marked channel into the river and all the way upstream. Outside the marked channel it’s all slow-speed.
You are right about there being no manatees inside the bar. I fish there once a week and have never seen one, except on the big bar that pushes out just north of Big Pass. You are also right about few people obeying the law. However, FWC has been putting some enforcement down there of late since the rule became mandatory, and I think most will eventually follow the regulations. Keeping fast-moving boats outside the bar may not help manatees, but it will help seagrass, and will also improve the flats fishing there because buzzing the flats is now the single biggest problem in the backwaters. Unfortunately, with so many more boats on the water, we all have to adjust a bit to avoid ruining what we all value so much. FS