Gulf Coast Fishing Report: November 2026 to February 2027

A hurricane came ashore at Destin three weeks before winter, and Texas has lost its weekly fishing report

Dates that change what you may keep

9 of these 15 change a season, a bag limit or a legal method. Every day of the week below was checked against a calendar.

Flounder: closed in four states, on three calendars

Flounder leave the bays for the Gulf to spawn in late autumn, and four of the five states protect the run with a closure. The windows do not line up, so a flounder that can be kept on one side of a state line cannot on the other, on the same day.

Each figure is in that state's section below with the agency's own words. From December 1 to 14, Texas is the only one of the five still closed.

Redfish and speckled trout, state by state

The two fish most winter trips on this coast are about, and the limits that change most at a state line. Both are open all winter in every state, apart from Florida's regional seatrout closures.

Florida also sets boat limits for red drum and manages both fish by region, and Texas limits apply out to nine nautical miles. Every cell is in that state's own section below.

State by state

Season dates, local reports, stocking and the engine outlook for each state, with its sub-regions. Everything above this point is what crosses state lines.

The weather and the water from November to February, most years

This part does not change from year to year, which is why it is worth reading before the forecast rather than after it.

The weather

Cold fronts set the rhythm. One arrives every several days through the depth of winter: a band of rain or a line of storms, then a hard north wind, then clear, cold, still high pressure that can frost the whole coast and freeze its northern half. The wind swings back onshore within a few days, humid Gulf air returns, and fog forms over the chilled bays until the next front clears it. A freeze that reaches deep into the Florida peninsula comes only in some winters, and those are the winters people remember.

The water

Shallow bays and marshes lose heat fast behind a front and regain it almost as fast after one, so their water swings far more from week to week than deep water does. A strong north wind pushes water out of the bays and brings the lowest tides of the year, leaving flats dry and crowding fish into channels, bayous and holes. The Gulf cools slowly and stays the warm side of every pass. Rivers carry cold, fresh runoff after winter rain, while the spring-fed rivers of Florida run at an even temperature whatever the air does.

How the quarter breaks

It opens on the tail of the autumn run, with flounder leaving through the passes to spawn offshore and bull redfish still along the beaches. From late December into early February the coast is at its coldest and most front-driven, and fish hold deep, moving up only on the warming afternoons between fronts. It closes with sheepshead and black drum gathering at jetties, bridges and passes to spawn, and the first long warm spells pulling bait back onto the flats.

The moon from November to February

The U.S. Naval Observatory's dates, on local time.

What our engine expects along the coast and on the lakes

This is a weather forecast, so it covers two weeks and not the season, and the further out a date sits the less it is worth. The engine knows nothing about a freeze closure, a fish kill, a closed ramp or a storm-damaged pier, so check the agency before you go. We publish a grade, not a promise.

Engine outlook generated November 3, 2026, covering 37 waters.