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How to catch Snook
Snook feed in 68–90°F water and bite best at 74–86°F. Fish Scouter's season calendar follows them in 10 waters; in October they are at their peak in Tampa Bay & Sarasota, Charlotte Harbor & the Islands, The Ten Thousand Islands & Everglades and 5 more.
About
The linesider: a black lateral line, a sloped head and a jaw that will cut your leader if you go light. Lives on the edge of moving water — a mangrove point, a pass, a dock light — and eats what the tide brings past.
How to fish it
Fish the current seam, not the middle of the flow. Upcurrent presentation, let it swing. Heavy fluorocarbon leader — 30 to 50 lb — because the gill plate is a razor.
What it eats
Live bait for it
Pilchards (whitebait)Free-lined or under a cork, hooked through the nose on a #1 to 2/0 circle hook. The one bait that catches everything inshore.
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.
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.
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 2026One fish per person, slot 28–33" on the Gulf side and 28–32" on the Atlantic side; a $10 snook permit is required to keep one; seasons differ by region (see your water's page).
The current rule →Where it is, month by month
Snook are a tropical fish living at the edge of their range, and the cold decides everything. Their lethal limit sits around 50°F, so every winter they retreat up rivers, into residential canals, warm power-plant outflows and spring heads; tagging on the Nature Coast tracked them sitting right on the springhead on the coldest days. In spring they come back out to the mangrove points and passes, and from late April into October the adults gather at the passes, inlets and beaches to spawn — the famous Jupiter, Sebastian and Boca Grande inlet fish, and the summer beach snook cruising the trough at dawn. The fall mullet run is their big feed, and then the first fronts push them back up the creeks. They're a Florida fish (and south Texas' Lower Laguna Madre), creeping north toward Cedar Key and beyond as winters warm, with seasons and slots that differ by coast — check MyFWC.