UTERFlorida snook spend winter in warm water (canals, rivers, spring heads and power-plant outflows), move to the mangrove points and passes in spring, spawn at the passes, inlets and beaches from late April into October, and feed hard on the fall mullet run. Snook are a tropical fish at the edge of their range, so water temperature decides where they are in every season.
This guide follows the snook calendar in the Fish Scouter app water by water, from the Nature Coast to Jupiter. Each section links to the month-by-month guide for that water.
Snook seasons at a glance
| Season | Where the fish are | What to throw |
|---|---|---|
| Winter (Dec–Feb) | Canals, deep river bends, spring heads, power-plant outflows, sunny mud shorelines | Live shrimp, slow soft plastics, suspending plugs |
| Spring (Mar–Apr) | Mangrove points, oyster bars, the mouths of the passes; big fish start staging on the beaches | Whitebait, pinfish, jerkbaits, walk-the-dog topwater |
| Summer (May–Aug) | Passes, inlets, the beach trough at dawn, dock lights at night: the spawn | Whitebait, pinfish, shrimp under the lights, white bucktails |
| Fall (Sep–Nov) | Back on the mangroves and the beach with the mullet, then up the creeks after the first fronts | Finger mullet, mullet-profile swimbaits, topwater |
Winter: backcountry, canals and warm water
Snook stop feeding and get stressed in water around 60°F. Water near 50°F can kill them, especially when it drops fast. FWC researchers looking at past freezes found that snook caught in shallows that stayed near 50°F for two days or more were the ones that died. Each cold front sends them to the warmest water they can reach:
- Tampa Bay: the residential canals, the deep holes off the flats and the power-plant outflows at Apollo Beach (Tampa Bay snook).
- Charlotte Harbor: up the Peace, Myakka and Caloosahatchee rivers and into the canals. Shorelines that face the sun warm first after a front (Charlotte Harbor snook).
- The Everglades: the deep creek bends and river holes. When a front drains the backcountry, it pushes fish into the open, which makes for the best sight fishing of the year on the calm days after (Everglades snook).
- The Nature Coast: the spring heads at Homosassa, Crystal River and Chassahowitzka, where the water holds near 72°F all winter. Tagged fish sat right on the springhead on the coldest days (Big Bend snook).
- The Atlantic side: the St. Lucie and Loxahatchee rivers, the deep inlet holes, and under the Miami bridges on the outgoing (Treasure Coast, Biscayne Bay).
Winter snook fishing is slow and timed. Fish the warmest part of the day, usually the afternoon incoming, two or three days after a front, once the shallows have warmed. Use a slow presentation: a live shrimp, or a soft plastic dragged along the bottom.
Cold-stun: when to leave them alone
In a hard freeze, snook go lethargic, drift near the surface and roll on their sides. Don't fish a cold-stunned snook. Keeping one is illegal. During severe events, FWC has also suspended snook harvest by executive order, so check MyFWC after any big freeze. Report fish kills to FWC's Fish Kill Hotline. The 2010 freeze killed snook across the state. Florida's cold snap in February 2026 hit some areas, but researchers reported far fewer deaths. Their explanation was that how fast the water cools matters as much as how cold it gets.
Spring: out to the points and passes
From March, snook leave the canals and rivers for the mangrove points, oyster bars and the inside mouths of the passes. In Tampa Bay and Charlotte Harbor, April is the month the big fish start staging on the beaches and in the passes. Whitebait (scaled sardines) appears on the grass flats around then. A livewell of whitebait thrown free-lined onto a mangrove point on the outgoing tide is the classic Gulf-coast spring day.
On the Atlantic side, big fish move into the Jupiter, St. Lucie, Fort Pierce and Sebastian inlets in April. In the Keys, snook gather at the bridges and channels (Keys snook).
Summer: the spawn at the passes, inlets and beaches
From late April into October, adult snook gather to spawn where the tide runs hardest. The best-known spawning spots are:
- Gulf coast passes: Johns Pass, Longboat Pass and Big Sarasota Pass in the Tampa Bay area, and Boca Grande, Captiva, Redfish and Blind passes farther south.
- Atlantic inlets: Jupiter, St. Lucie and Sebastian are the most famous snook spawn in Florida, along with Government Cut, Haulover and Port Everglades in Miami and Port Canaveral (Space Coast snook).
- The beach trough: at first light, snook cruise a foot of water right at the edge of the sand. Walk the beach and sight-cast a white bucktail or a small swimbait ahead of the fish. Wade-fishing the beach for snook is one of the best ways to catch them from shore in Florida.
At night, fish the dock lights and bridge shadow lines near the passes on the outgoing. This is also the season with the most closed harvest months, so treat spawning snook as catch-and-release and check the current season and slot for your region at MyFWC. The Gulf and Atlantic regions have different calendars.
Fall: the mullet run and the big feed
September brings the fish back inside onto the mangroves, and the fall mullet run starts on the Atlantic side. From mid-September through October, snook sit under the mullet schools along the beach and at the inlets, picking off bait from the bottom of the school. On the Treasure Coast it's the best beach snook fishing of the year. Throw a live finger mullet, or a mullet-profile swimbait worked along the bottom edge of the school.
On the Gulf coast, October is the fall feed on the mangrove points on the outgoing. In November the first real fronts start pushing fish toward the rivers, canals and creeks again, and the cycle restarts.
Snook by water, in one line each
- Tampa Bay & Sarasota: canals in winter, the Sarasota passes and the beach trough in summer, the mangroves in fall.
- Charlotte Harbor: rivers in winter, Boca Grande and the island passes in summer.
- Everglades: backcountry creeks in winter, the outside passes and beaches from Marco to Cape Sable in summer.
- Treasure Coast: the famous inlet spawn in spring and summer, and the mullet-run beach fishing in fall.
- Miami: inlets and bridges on the outgoing all year.
- Space Coast: Sebastian and Port Canaveral. Fish this far north are very sensitive to cold.
- Big Bend: a recent arrival this far north, with winter fish on the spring heads.
Tides and timing
Snook are ambush feeders. They sit facing into the current behind a point, a piling or a bar and wait for the tide to bring food. Moving water matters more than anything else. The outgoing at a pass, the first of the incoming on a winter flat, and the strong tide of the day all beat slack water. Fish Scouter shows the next tide turn and how hard the water is moving at the nearest NOAA station, along with the live water temperature. That number is the one to watch in winter.
Find the snook this week
The snook page shows the whole calendar. We think Fish Scouter is the best way to know what's biting, because it does what a printed calendar can't: it combines this season calendar with the live water temperature from the nearest reporting sensor, the NOAA tide and the wind, ranks every species for the water you're on each hour, and explains each ranking in plain words. In winter, the live water temperature tells you whether the snook are up on the flats or still in the canals. Try it free.