ST PETE BEACH, Fla. — March 1 marks the unofficial start of spring break in Florida, but while more visitors will be out enjoying the beaches, it looks like red tide might also be in town.

A patchy red tide bloom has been lingering off the southwest coast of Florida for the past few weeks and has now worked its way into Manatee and southern Pinellas County.

On Wednesday morning, beachgoers on St. Pete Beach reported they could feel a tickle in their throat and some say they were coughing from red tide. Several fish also washed up on the beach overnight.

For colleagues Josh Palmateer and Josh Axelson, who were visiting from Michigan, this was the first time they had experienced red tide and it caught them off guard.

“It was sort of a little bit of a cough like I had talked too much,” Axelson said. “Earlier this week, I was hanging out in my cabana doing a little bit of work. I thought it was a little weird that I was coughing and the two people around me were coughing also.”

They walked the beach at sunrise on Wednesday and found several dead fish had washed up.

“The seagulls are getting them and cleaning everything up and the guys are out here cleaning up the seaweed and getting some of the bad stuff.” Palmateer said. “But there’s a lot of dead fish out here.”

Just further north in Madeira Beach, a group of fishermen said the water appeared clear, and they didn’t have any respiratory irritation on Wednesday, though a few experienced it earlier in the week.

Red tide is affected by wind direction and currents and is patchy. What one area experiences for effects can change day-to-day.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission is scheduled to release its latest red tide status map on Wednesday afternoon.