Family Dip Netting
On Sarasota Bay, the smallest discoveries often make the biggest impression: a darting shrimp, a camouflaged juvenile fish, the delicate fronds of seagrass moving with the tide.
By Edit Sarasota Staff
On Sarasota Bay, the smallest discoveries often make the biggest impression: a darting shrimp, a camouflaged juvenile fish, the delicate fronds of seagrass moving with the tide. Family Dip Netting invites children and adults to get close to that quietly busy world, turning an ordinary shoreline into an outdoor classroom.
Hosted by Mote Marine Laboratory, the program offers a hands-on introduction to the nearshore habitats that shape life in the Bay. Participants will wade into the shallows with dip nets, explore the seagrass beds and learn about the plants and animals that depend on them. It is an experience grounded in curiosity rather than spectacle—an opportunity to look carefully, ask questions and understand how much is happening just beneath the surface.
That kind of access matters in Sarasota, where the Bay is both a defining landscape and a living system under constant pressure. Seagrass meadows provide shelter and nursery habitat for marine life, while healthy nearshore environments help sustain the broader ecological character of the region. For families, an afternoon spent examining the Bay’s smaller residents can make those larger environmental questions feel immediate and tangible. The lesson is not delivered from a distance; it is discovered with wet feet and a net in hand.
Mote, long recognized for its marine research and public education, is especially well suited to this kind of encounter. Its City Island campus places participants at the edge of the ecosystem scientists study, offering a direct connection between the laboratory’s work and the community it serves. The format is designed for all ages, making it easy for a multigenerational group to share the experience—though every participant, adults and children alike, must register.
Family Dip Netting takes place Saturday, October 24, 2026, at Mote Marine Laboratory, 1600 Ken Thompson Parkway on City Island. The program costs $18 per person for Mote members and $20 for nonmembers. Come prepared for an outdoor exploration of Sarasota Bay, with the anticipation that the most memorable finds may be the ones small enough to fit in a net.