These Photos Show Why You Need To Visit Fish Haul Beach Park On Hilton Head Island • Life by Melissa

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Fish Haul Beach Park is a not-so-well know treasure on Hilton Head Island. You will not be disappointed if you make the trip to see it’s beauty first-hand.

Fish Haul Beach Park

Fish Haul Beach Park is a bay beach on Hilton Head Island. It is located North East on the island and is tucked away from where most visitors spend their time. While I do not suggest this beach for a day of playing in the water, I do suggest it for seeing wildlife, combing the beach for shells and experiencing the serenity of Hilton Head Island.

What To Expect

There are two roads that lead to Fish Haul Beach Park. One is paved through a neighborhood area while the other is unpaved. Once you arrive you will be greeted with FREE PARKING, a restroom area and beach access. One great feature here is the sand mat that leads down to the beach so it’s easier for everyone to enjoy.

When planning your visit, try to get there during low tide so you have more beach to explore and better luck at finding treasures in the sand. As mentioned previously, I do not suggest visiting this beach to play in the water all day. You should keep shoes on at all times to avoid injury from oyster beds located all over the beach.

Fish Haul Beach Park is dog friendly so feel free to bring your furry friend. Be sure to pack baggies to clean up after your animal and keep them close to be respectful of others visiting the beach as well and to keep them safe. Just remember – you’re dog may be nice but that doesn’t mean someone else’s is.

For the seashell lovers I would recommend bringing a bucket to collect treasures in! You never know what you’ll find combing through the beaches here.

Fish Haul Beach Park Wildlife

Upon arriving to the beach you’ll be greeted by a sign reminding you NOT to feed the alligators. This is SO IMPORATANT. If alligators are fed by humans, they will approach humans in the future rather than avoiding them. This is normally viewed as aggression and leads to the animal being put down.

On to the sea turtles. Hilton Head is extremely dedicated to supporting sea turtles at all times. Their nesting season runs from May through October. To ensure you are sharing this beautiful space with them be sure to fill in any holes you dig while visiting and picking up your trash. Also, try your best to not walk on sea turtle tracks in the sand.

While visiting Fish Haul Beach you can also plan to see many species of birds, an occasional jelly fish, clams and more!

Fish Haul Beach Park At Low Tide

We took a summer trip to Hilton Head Island on one unusually cool morning here (about 78 degrees) in the Lowcountry. We live just on the other side of the bridge in Bluffton so we have the ability to be picky about when we visit! It just so happens that we got to the beach about 10 minutes after low tide. WOW! What an experience.

The tide was out so there was so much wildlife exposed. We saw crabs, hermit crabs, beach birds up close and personal, minnows and horseshoe crabs. We honestly couldn’t believe it because it was so different than the other time we visited during the cool spring.

My favorite part of the entire morning was watching two small birds, I believe a heron and egret or both, fishing for minnows that got caught in small pools of water as the tide moved out. We were so close to them and they completely ignored us and gave us quite the show!

Another really cool experience was witnessing the tide move back in. We stayed at the beach for about 90 minutes and could see the water starting to make its way back towards the shore throw the little ripples in the sand. Be sure to pay attention to this as you don’t want to get caught too far out.

It’s important to note we left everything on the beach. As much as I wanted to grab one of those beautiful shells, it is not okay to remove these creatures from their habitats. If you get so lucky as to find a large shell with nothing in it then take it for keeping! Otherwise, please be sure to leave the sea creatures in the sea.