UTER
How to catch Redfish
Redfish feed in 58–90°F water and bite best at 65–82°F. Fish Scouter's season calendar follows them in 19 waters; in October they are at their peak in The Panhandle, The Big Bend & Nature Coast, Tampa Bay & Sarasota and 15 more.
About
The red drum: a copper back, a black spot at the tail, and a mouth built for the bottom. Tails in inches of water on a flat, crawls oyster bars, schools by the hundred in the fall. The most dependable fish in Florida.
How to fish it
Find the bait and the moving water. On a flat, look for tails, wakes and mud; on a bar, work the down-current edge. They eat off the bottom — let it sit.
What it eats
Live bait for it
Live shrimpUnder a popping cork or free-lined, hooked under the horn on a #1 to 2/0 circle hook; on a jig head for the bottom. The universal inshore bait.
PinfishHooked through the back ahead of the dorsal on a 2/0 to 4/0 circle hook; the small ones free-lined, the big ones on a fish-finder rig.
Finger mulletLip-hooked on a 2/0 to 4/0 circle hook and free-lined, or on a fish-finder rig in the surf. Cut mullet on the bottom for redfish and drum.
Blue crabsWhole and small for permit and tarpon; halved or quartered on the bottom for black drum, redfish and cobia.
CroakersHooked through the back on a 2/0 to 3/0 circle hook, free-lined or on a Carolina rig — big trout and redfish can't leave them alone.What to fish it with
the sizes that fish itThe rule
checked September 2026Statewide slot 18–27" total length, one fish per person, with regional vessel limits; the Indian River Lagoon system is catch-and-release only.
The current rule →Where it is, month by month
Redfish are an estuary fish that grows up and goes to sea. Juveniles and slot fish live their first few years in the marsh, the grass flats and the mangroves from the Chesapeake to south Texas — rarely moving far. Once mature, around four years old, they join the big offshore schools of bull reds and come back to the passes, inlets and surf every late summer and fall to spawn: August into November, peaking September and October, at dusk and through the night with the males drumming. That is the bull red run — Pamlico Sound and the Outer Banks surf in August and September, the Mayport jetties and Mosquito Lagoon in Florida, the Panhandle passes in October, the Louisiana marsh edges and the Texas jetties. Winter sends the inshore fish into tight clear-water schools in the creeks and bayous, which is the best sight fishing of the year. Bulls are old spawners; let them go.