Pine Island (McKethan)

Pine Island, officially Alfred McKethan Pine Island Park, is the main beach park in Hernando County and the northernmost launch in this cluster. Hurricanes Helene and Milton hammered it in 2024 and it sat closed for the better part of a year, reopening in August 2025 with about eleven hundred cubic yards of fresh sand and a rebuild meant to take the next storm better. The launch is a walk down to a man-made swimming lagoon and the shallow Gulf bayside, warm and sandy and forgiving, which makes it an easy place to learn. The flip side of that shallowness is that the flats run skinny a long way out, so on a low tide you will be walking your board through ankle-deep water before it floats, and there is nothing between you and the wind once you clear the beach. A couple of practical notes: the permanent restroom building is gone for now, so it is portable toilets on a pad, and the park fills up and closes its gate once it hits capacity on busy days, so come early. This is the sunset spot locals rank above Bayport.

Where do I park, and is it free?

Cost

$5 / day (as of 2026-06)

Parking

Ample

Restrooms

portable

Main Hernando County beach park with parking and facilities. Reopened after Hurricane Milton.

How clear is the water?

Shallow Gulf bayside, very skinny at low tide.

What will I see?

• Shorebirds and seabirds working the beach and the tide line, dolphins off the bayside flats
• Redfish and seatrout on the shallow grass, rays gliding over the sand in the warm months
• Bay scallops out on the grass during the summer season

What's the fishing like?

Shallow Gulf flats: spotted seatrout and redfish, snook in the warm months, sheepshead on structure.

How do I share the water here?

The shallow flats off the beach are seagrass that the scallops, rays, and young fish all use. Walk your board out past the grass to the sand before you climb on rather than dragging a fin through it, and give any feeding flock of shorebirds a wide arc instead of paddling them up off the sand.