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Our March/April edition is upon us. There has been so much going on, in our little piece of paradise, since January 1st and it continues for the next few months. 

We kick off this weekend with the Lower Suwannee Art & Nature Fest (March 11). Next weekend will then be the Brew Fest (March 18). The following weekend has the Trenton Quilt Festival (March 25) and we wrap up the month with the Florida State Bluegrass Festival (March 31-Apr 1), Old Florida Celebration of the Arts (April 1-2) and the Horseshoe Beach Spring Festival (April 1). In April we have the Cross City Fly-In & Cruise-In (April 15) and we wrap it up with the Cedar Lakes Woods and Garden Spring Festival (May 6-7). Lots to do so please take advantage of the beautiful weather and attend a couple of these events. Most, if not all, are put on by volunteers and the local towns and cities would appreciate it! 

We have some unique stories in this issue again thanks to all of our contributors.  We are happy to welcome two new contributors as well, Brian Bowen and Carla Antico. They both bring informative and entertaining articles to kick things off. We also welcome some new (and old) advertisers, Cedar Key Pottery, Putnam Hotel RV Resort, Steinhatchee Marina and Deadman Bay and Dek Kat Boats. Also joining us this round are two new businesses from the east coast in St. Augustine. FishBites Trading Post and Bob’s Bait and Tackle. We are very excited to have these two in with us and thank Captain Tony Johns for his help on this.

Although this has been a very busy year for us already, we had to take some time to reflect on the loss of my mom in February. She was 87 years young and lived a wonderful life. She and my dad (who we lost in 2006) uprooted their five kids and moved cross country to Florida where we have spent 50 years of making memories and having our family continue to grow. She ran a tight ship back in the day and she took care of the discipline since my dad was on the road quite a bit. She taught us respect, manners, and accountability for our actions. I feel lucky to have had her for my mom and thank her for all that she did for us. With that, I will leave you with a few quotes I found online this weekend.  Until the next time, enjoy.

• “My mother is a walking miracle.” — …

• “A mother understands what a child does not say.” — …

• “The world needs our mothers.” — …

• “A mother’s hug lasts long after she lets go.” — …

• “There is nothing as sincere as a mother’s kiss.” — …

• “Life began with waking up and loving my mother’s face.” —

Happy New Year! What a year 2022 was indeed and we limped across the finish line December 31. My wife came down with CoVid two days before Christmas and our house was turned upside down for a week. No holiday get togethers, no baking, no festive mood… basically no fun. Our kids bailed on us and we didn’t do our family gift exchange until the 28th. A different Christmas indeed but we survived and made the best of it. And yes, thank the Good Lord, my wife is doing fine. She shed a lot of tears but I did the best to entertain her (lots of Christmas movies, carols and fires in the fireplace).

We start year number six of The Hidden Coast Magazine and we are blessed indeed for such great support from all of our wonderful customers. All of our current customers resigned with us and we picked up some new ones, and old friends at the end. We are looking forward to a great year and it kicks off with several festival planned throughout the area for the first quarter.

We start with Fiddler Crab Festival, then Miles of Smiles, The Lower Suwannee Art & Nature Fest, the Brew Fest, the Old Florida Celebration of the Arts and finally the Horseshoe Beach Spring Fest. Knock on wood we have had a mild winter so far, so get outdoors and enjoy these great events.

We have some great articles in this edition from our regular contributors and Dawn Taylor, Unexpected Adventures with Dawn, gives us an overview of some of the events mentioned already, plus a few more. We have all of our regular charter captains giving tips and tricks to fish the winter waters and Nikki Douglas gives us an Old Time Cracker Christmas. A little late, we know, but it’s well worth the read.

Finally we are excited to announce the launch of a third publication. We’ve had several charter captains contact us about writing in The Hidden Coast Magazine. Unfortunately so many that we don’t have the room for them anymore. Hence, we decided to start The Fishing Lowdown. A monthly tabloid publication that zeros in on the fishing right here along The Hidden Coast. We have several captains already in with us and the reception has been far greater that we ever expected. They are a tough bunch, all with big hearts, who are excited to promote the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Be on the lookout for our first issue this month and be sure to check out our website for additional information and updates. www.thefishinglowdown.com

Until the next time, enjoy The Hidden Coast.

Another year coming to a close for us. We spent 2022 celebrating our 5 year anniversary and topped it off with a 3 day/2 night stay Giveaway in Steinhatchee. Congratulation to our winner, Mike Ferris, who was selected November 1st. We thank all of our participants and we appreciate you taking the time to be part of our celebration. We wish we could have given everyone a prize!

Christmas is coming and we are promoting several holiday events in our current edition! From boat parades, festivals, event venues to Santa showing up everywhere – we have got the area covered. We hope the weather will cool down a “little bit” so everyone can catch some Christmas Spirt and get out and enjoy some of the fun events throughout the area.

Don’t forget that November and December are excellent times to finish in the area as well. Our charter captains have some good tips and tricks to take advantage of the cool weather and have a successful day on the water.

Although it is November, we have a couple spooky articles from Toni Collins and Nikki Douglas. Both of these ladies send us insightful articles for each magazine and we hope you can take the time to read them.

Our usual advertisers are all back in with us again along with some old friends. As with each holiday season, we urge you to visit them and do your Christmas shopping locally this year. These are some hard working folks that offer unique and one-of-a-kind items you can only find on The Hidden Coast. Perfect for the hard to buy for person on your list!

We hope everyone will take time this November to give thanks for all that we have. Mike Farmer has given us his annual “Blessed” article again for this issue, and we hope everyone takes a few minutes to read it. I have certainly been blessed through my life with strong families, good health, wonderful friends and a career that I have enjoyed doing for over 30 years. I’m not sure what else I could have done in life other than art. Starting our magazines 5 years ago has been the “cherry on the top” and we appreciate all of our advertisers and readers for the support they have given us since day one.

We wish everyone a happy and safe holiday season spent with friends and family, and a happy and healthy new year 2023. God Bless.

Summer is slowly fading on The Hidden Coast, but that doesn’t mean things will be slowing down. Just the opposite. We are promoting half a dozen festivals planned for the upcoming months and into the first of the year. Fall in North Florida is always a beautiful time and we urge everyone to take advantage of the cool weather and visit one, two or all of the events we have in this month’s issue.

Our big news for this edition is our 5 Year Anniversary Giveaway! SeaHag Marina and Fiddlers on the River, both located in Steinhatchee, have graciously partnered with us to offer a 3 Day/2 Night stay at SeaHag Marina, with a full day’s boat rental and a $100 gift certificate from Fiddlers. We thank both of these businesses for being part of our celebration, as well as Country Legends Radio for their help in promoting us on the airwaves throughout the area. What do I have to do to win, you ask? Simply go to the Hidden Coast Magazine Facebook page and follow us – it’s that simple! The contest will run for the next two months (Sept/Oct) and we will randomly pick one winner on November 1st. Our way of saying “Thank You” for five great years!

We have several new, and returning, businesses in for this round. The Marina at Deadman Bay in Steinhatchee, Dek Kat Boats in Cross City, The Arts Center in Cedar Key, The Deer Stand in Chiefland and BBQ Fest in Hart Springs. We welcome all of our new customers in and look forward to working with them for a long time to come. Please remember all of our regular articles contributors and advertisers as well. Without them, issue after issue, we would not have a magazine. Period.

Finally, after five years, our little business is growing internally. As many of you know my wife and kids have always lent a hand when needed. Unfortunately, work schedules and school schedules have overtaken everyone in our house and it was time to hire some help. I am happy to say we now have a part-time bookkeeper and a part-time delivery person. Knock on wood, it’s been a smooth ride so far, and we appreciate Amanda and Dany coming on board with us!

Until the next time, enjoy the beautiful season ahead and pat yourself on the back for surviving another Florida summer!

5 & 48. Significant numbers for us this year. 5 being the number of years we have been in print and 48 being the record number of pages for our upcoming July/August edition. These are both goals we have strived for when we started our magazine back in 2016. Close one door, open another. End one chapter, begin another. I have learned quite a bit on this journey and we have added additional features and tools to help promote this area even more. 50+ Racks, Social media pages, Web Advertising, Google AdWord Campaigns and finally a complete apparel line that includes shirts, hats, visors, tote bags, koozies, magnets and decals. It has been hard work but I have been lucky to have strong support from my family and great customers and contributors who have supported us from day one. We thank everyone for their patronage over the past 5 years and look forward to promoting and serving this area for a long time to come.

Sea Hag Marina is on the cover of our July/August edition again this year with their annual scalloping theme. Sea Hag has done quite a bit of work over the past year at their location and if you haven’t been lately you might want to check them out. They revamped their docks and upgraded their facilities. They have a great crew working for them and we wish them well with the upcoming season!

In addition to Sea Hag, we welcome James Chewning to this edition. James grew up in the area and currently lives in California. He has written “The Coast is Clear” a riveting tale of a smuggler’s life and you can purchase your copy through his ad with us. We also welcome Good Time Charters and Big Bend Charters both back in for us this round and our brand new customer on the Local Flavors Page, The Putnam Lodge. 

IFAS has also contributed some timely information on the scalloping season again this year and our regular charter captains all give their insight on the fishing and scalloping season. They talk about what is being caught in the waters this month and the do’s and don’ts of scalloping. Heed their advice!  Steinhatchee Chamber has given us an article on a very unique visitor that now calls their coastline home. 

Again we thank all of our regular writers and advertisers for their continued support. Without them we are not where we are today. Please take the time to read their articles and visit their storefronts when in the area. They are a tough bunch, but they will welcome you with open arms and a big heart.

Finally we are happy to announce we were the recipient of the Above and Beyond Award 2022-2023 from the Steinhatchee Chamber of Commerce in June. We are very proud to have been recognized by our peers and thank them for this wonderful recognition. Also, be on the lookout for a big announcement in our September edition. We look to top off our year long anniversary in a fun way! Until the next time, Happy and safe scalloping. 

Can you believe it’s already May? My goodness, where does time continue to go. And beyond May, we see the dog days of summer. Of course as I get older, the summers get hotter (so I’m told by my smart aleck  kids). But with our wonderful location here on The Hidden Coast, it is easy to find a place to cool off! Have fun, and enjoy the upcoming summer months and remember to pick up a copy of The Hidden Coast Magazine wherever your travels may take you.

We are happy to announce some new customers with us for this round and some old ones back in with us again. KOA of Perry and Florida Saltwater Flats Fishing Charters are our newest advertisers, and we welcome them to our publication. Tide Water Tours and the Cedar Key Historical Society and museum are back in with us, as well. We thank all of them for their support of our magazine and look forward to a long relationship with all.

We are also happy to have the Cedar Key Dolphin Project on our cover for this round. This organization, led by Dr. Stefanie Gazda, does some amazing things, with a staff that comes from around the globe. They have an article on page 26 of this edition and you can learn much more about them at https://www.cedarkeydolphinproject.org/

Speaking of around the area, our charter captains bring some awesome tips and tricks for fishing the waters of this area. And Jeff Cary gives us an “eagles eye view” of the entire region. In addition, Nikki Douglas, Dawn Perez and Toni Collins give us some great insight on the history and interesting sights of this area we call, The Hidden Coast.

We thank you for reading and hope you enjoy your visit!

March is here… can you believe it? 2022 has been a fast year so far, but it has also been a very good year for us as well. We see festivals coming back in the area, our state’s tourism statistics bouncing back and, most importantly, we see businesses wanting to advertise again. In this edition alone we are happy to say we have six new customers. Our fingers and toes are crossed that we will continue to see growth this year, and also some stability to our daily lives and routines. It’s been such a long two years and I hope and pray that the Covid fog will start to lift and the sunshine will again show us what a beautiful part of the country we live in.

As mentioned earlier we are proud to welcome several new advertisers to this edition. Fiddler’s Resort & Properties joins us with three ads promoting their property management division, wedding chapel and two local festivals they will be hosting. We also have StyleCraft Boats of Alachua, in as a new customer, along with Rock Creek Charters (Steinhatchee), Artist Hideaway Studios (Cedar Key) and Savanna Barry of UF/IFAS Nature Coast Biological Station (Cedar Key). Savanna has contributed many articles to us over the years and we appreciate her continued support of our publication. We also have some old friends back in with us along with all of our usual wonderful advertisers! Our monthly writers bring us lots of tips and tricks for the anglers along with interesting tidbits and history from around the area and state.

The festivals in the area have not slowed down and we are happy to be promoting the next round starting this month with the Lower Suwannee Art & Nature Fest next weekend (March 12). They go non-stop from there and we will be promoting each one weekly, on our social media sites, through the end of April. If you aren’t following us please do so now and keep up with latest happenings around The Hidden Coast. We post a little bit of everything, but the majority of it goes to promoting our great customers! Our Facebook link is https://www.facebook.com/The-Hidden-Coast-Magazine-880014738800558.

Until the next time, get out and enjoy the beautiful weather on The Hidden Coast!

Happy New year! We jump into 2022 with festivals galore and we are happy to say we’re promoting six of them on the pages of this month’s issue. Steinhatchee, Horseshoe Beach, Suwannee and Cedar Key are all hosting events along The Hidden Coast. We wish these communities great success and we welcome all our readers from all over to attend, if not all of them, at least one. I can honestly say I have attended each of them and you will not be disappointed. Good food, entertainment and, most of all, great people who put them on. 

The holidays came and went in the usual fast, chaotic way at our house. This year was particularly difficult as I had no clue of what to buy. Sometimes I can pick up on hints and requests but this year I had nothing. In the end all was good, and we have many memories from another successful Christmas holiday… three times over! 

In addition to shopping and eating in December we were able to take advantage of the great weather with a fishing trip out of Steinhatchee. As one of the local charter captains put it in an email to me, “… I think the fish are confused with the crazy weather.” We expected to have great success after hearing that and on the second cast of the day my son pulled in a 35” Black Drum! An excellent catch that brought a grin from ear-to-ear. Good thing though, because that was the only thing we caught all day. The fish might be confused but they aren’t stupid when they see this guy coming. 

We dropped back down to 32 pages for this issue and I again blame the holidays. My intentions were to have the book to the printer on the 23rd, but it failed miserably. I can’t expect people to drop everything and put us first when their “To Do” list is a mile long. I think I mentioned this in the past, but my old boss never printed a book in December. It always struck me as odd, but now I know why. This year we may have to take a look at that. One’s self, family and friends first – work second.

A big thank you to all of our advertisers who signed back up with us for 2022. We appreciate their continued support of our little magazine as we celebrate “five years”! We also thank all of our writers who continue to send us fun and informative content. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Until the next time. Get out and enjoy some of the wonderful events in the area and let them know you saw it in The Hidden Coast Magazine!

The holidays are upon us! Where did 2021 go? Another roller coast ride year for this country, but at the end here we all are. We are fortunate here in Florida to live in the most beautiful state in the union, and we are extra fortunate to call North Florida, and The Hidden Coast, home.

We finished the year with another 40 page magazine (our 3rd in a row). We are very excited for this and look forward to reaching our next goal of 48, if not 56, pages in 2022. We thank all of our advertisers and writers for their continued support of our magazine and especially all of the new additions we picked up this year (both in advertising and writing). I don’t want to recognize anyone, because I know I would leave someone out, but there is one of each who has been with us from the very beginning. Thank you, thank you for I now consider them friends, more than clients.

Our current edition is filled with some great stuff! We have new advertisers as well as several pages on kayaking. This includes picking the right one for you and where to put in and so you can enjoy the beautiful scenery of The Hidden Coast. We also picked up four new rack locations, so it’s going to get harder and harder not to find us in the region! LOL

Please remember our advertisers as you start your holiday shopping. You can find some very unique items in this region. Most are hand made and very reasonably priced – perfect for that hard to buy person on your list. And don’t forget gift cards and certificates to some of the restaurants in the area. You can’t go wrong putting one of these under the tree. We too are offering some new items for The Last of Old Florida. Visors, decals, magnets and tote bags are new for holiday season, so if you have some time please check them out: https://thehiddencoastmag.com/store-2/

This month is somewhat of a milestone for us as we hit the 5 year mark, and I am very happy and proud of this accomplishment. It has certainly been a fast five years and I owe quite a bit gratitude to my family for their help along the way. They have always been willing to lend a hand when needed and for that I am very blessed.

Enjoy the upcoming holidays with family and friends and take a moment to thank the good Lord for all the blessing you have in life. Many of us take these for granted in the fast and turbulent world in which we live, but no tomorrow is guaranteed for anyone. Live life. Love life. Make memories.

Fall is quickly approaching and that means a somewhat more quiet time on The Hidden Coast. The Scalloping Season is over and the region is returning back to some type of normalcy. 

It’s been a little more difficult in some parts of the area due to the rain we received this summer (not to mention a tropical storm as well). Rain gauges turned into rain barrels and day after day the sky opened up. I was in the Steinhatchee area shortly after the last major deluge and could not believe the amount of standing water.  So much so, that I saw an alligator on the side of the road. Only in Florida. As of this writing we still have a couple more months of hurricane season and we can only hope and pray that Mother Nature will spare us a direct hit. 

I am happy to say that the weather did not slow us down over the last couple months. We are again planning to produce a 40-page magazine for September/October and that is a first for us. We have never had back-to-back 40 page issues and I am happy to say it looks like the last one of the year (November/December) will be the same size as well. We are very humbled and honored that our little magazine has become so popular. The biggest complaint we had this summer was everybody was out of magazines. “They are flying out of here,” is how one of our customers told us. With that being said we spoke to our printer and decided to increase our circulation starting with this edition! We will also be celebrating our five year anniversary in our next issue, and there will be more to come on that later.

In addition to our printed magazine doing so well our online numbers are even better. We are on track to quadruple the “New Users” to our website for 2021. Our web advertisers enjoyed exceeding one million views in mid-summer as well. Our click thru rate continues to be over .20% and we are very happy for that. Nerd talk, as my wife calls it, so I will spare you with all the specifics. In short, we are being seen in-print and online by a lot of people!  

One final note is we have added new items to our online store. These include visors, bags, shirts and koozies. The holidays are just around the corner and these would make great gifts and stocking stuffers. 

I feel like I spent this whole blog bragging on us, but we would be nowhere without our wonderful advertisers and writers who continue to support us. Please take a moment to let them know you saw them in The Hidden Coast Magazine. 

Until the next time. Enjoy the fall season on The Hidden Coast and we will see you in November.