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Steinhatchee Fishing Report

Updated Fri, Oct 23, 2026 from live gauge and weather data

The Big Bend’s trout town: grass flats north and south of the river mouth, scallops in summer, and a fleet that reads tides like scripture.

3/5
Fair. Fish the windows.A steady pattern: dawn and dusk carry the day.
Next tide
High 12:53 AM
Air / High
76 / 76 F
Wind
NE 10 mph

Sources: NOAA tides 8727695, Open-Meteo, solunar calculated for these coordinates.

Satellite view
Friday
23
October 2026

Today's Fishing Report

Generated this morning from live readings: gauge, weather model, sun and moon. A fresh report is published here every morning.

3/5Fair. Fish the windows.A steady pattern: dawn and dusk carry the day.

Steinhatchee lines up a genuinely fishable day across the board. Today brings clear skies, wind NE around 10 mph, steady pressure near 1019 hPa and a high of 76. Tides: high 12:22 AM and 12:48 PM, low 6:33 AM and 6:56 PM: the moving water either side of each change is when this place feeds. Water sits around 78 F for the season (estimated). With the waxing gibbous, the solunar majors run 10:09 AM-12:09 PM and 10:36 PM-12:36 AM: the windows to build the day around.

The plan, species by species

Redfish (red drum)Excellent

Spring and early summer put redfish on grass flats, shorelines and oyster bars; on the Gulf, fish below spawning age stay inside the bays (TPWD). Sight-cast to tailing and cruising fish or drift live shrimp under a popping cork.

Speckled troutExcellent

Spring brings seatrout back over shallow seagrass, and the spawning season (April to September in Louisiana and South Carolina) keeps them feeding. Popping corks with live shrimp, free-shrimping on the drift and casting to working birds are the main tools.

Tomorrow: Similar at 78 F. The solunar majors shift about 50 minutes later.Next report: Sat, Oct 24, 6:30 AMHow this report is made →

Before you go

Florida requires a fishing licence from age 16, from $17.00 for residents, and salt water needs its own licence here. What a Florida licence costs and where to buy it →

Chasing redfish (red drum) here? Check the size and bag limits with FWC before you keep anything. The season dates for Florida, read off the agency, are on the Florida seasons page.

Water and weather

Live readings.

Tides

NOAA station 8727695 (Steinhatchee River Entrance). Fish the moving water either side of each change.

Fri
HIGH12:22 AM3.5 ft
LOW6:33 AM0.9 ft
HIGH12:48 PM3.7 ft
LOW6:56 PM1.1 ft
Sat
HIGH12:53 AM3.8 ft
LOW7:21 AM0.4 ft
HIGH1:41 PM3.9 ft
LOW7:36 PM1.2 ft

Right now

Latest readings

Air temp76 F
High / Low76 / 48 F
WindNE 10-13 mph
Pressure1018.5 hPa, steady
Sky / Rain2% cloud, 0%
Sunrise / Sunset07:40 / 18:54
MoonWaxing Gibbous, 91%
Water temp (seasonal)~78 F est.

Bite planner

Hour-by-hour bite forecast for today. Tap a bar to see why.

5 AM8 AM11 AM2 PM5 PM8 PMsunrisesunsetPRIMEPRIME

Which day to fish Steinhatchee this week

The best day on Steinhatchee this week looks like Saturday Oct 24, at 4 out of 5, against 3 today.

Best day this week: Saturday, Oct 24 — good at 4/5, steady pressure, neither help nor hindrance.

Today, Oct 23 — Fair

A steady pattern: dawn and dusk carry the day.

Solunar majors
10:09 AM-12:09 PM and 10:36 PM-12:36 AM
Minor period
4:30 AM-5:30 AM
Sun
07:40 to 18:54
Moon
Waxing Gibbous, 91% lit
Sky and wind
Partly cloudy, 10 mph
Rain chance
0%

Forecast-based scores, less reliable further out: how the score is built.

Species guide

The species that matter on Steinhatchee: seasons, structure and how to fish each one. Today's ratings live in the report above.

Redfish (red drum) illustration

Redfish (red drum)

Best: late-summer and fall bull run; inshore all year

Red drum (Sciaenops ocellatus), called redfish across the South, is a bronze inshore drum with a black spot near the tail, fished on grass flats, oyster bars, marsh creeks and beaches from the Chesapeake around Florida to Texas. Spring and early summer put redfish on grass flats, shorelines and oyster bars; on the Gulf, fish below spawning age stay inside the bays (TPWD). Sight-cast to tailing and cruising fish or drift live shrimp under a popping cork.

Speckled trout illustration

Speckled trout

Shallow bays spring and summer; deeper water in winter

Speckled trout is the anglers' name for the spotted seatrout (Cynoscion nebulosus), a spotted member of the drum family that lives in shallow bays and estuaries from the Chesapeake to Texas. Spring brings seatrout back over shallow seagrass, and the spawning season (April to September in Louisiana and South Carolina) keeps them feeding. Popping corks with live shrimp, free-shrimping on the drift and casting to working birds are the main tools.

When to come: the Steinhatchee calendar

Activity by species and month, and how the water warms through the year. Tap any cell.

Species activity by month

1 = slow, 5 = peak. Current month highlighted.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Redfish (red drum)
Speckled trout
SlowPeak

Water temperature through the year

Typical surface temperature for this water type; today is around 78 F (estimated, not a reading).

5060708090JanMarMayJulSepNovOct, ~78 F now

Angler reports

Real reports from real anglers, reviewed before publishing. The water log below tracks each day automatically.

No angler reports yet this weekBe the first: your report helps every angler who checks Steinhatchee today, and we feature the best catch of the week.

Water log, last days

Auto-logged from live data
Thu, Oct 22

3/5 Fair. Fish the windows. A steady pattern: dawn and dusk carry the day. Redfish (red drum) led the card at excellent. High of 78 F, wind to 5 mph.

Wed, Oct 21

4/5 Good. Solid day ahead. Stable-to-falling pressure and workable wind line things up. Redfish (red drum) led the card at excellent. High of 80 F, wind to 9 mph.

Tue, Oct 20

4/5 Good. Solid day ahead. Stable-to-falling pressure and workable wind line things up. Redfish (red drum) led the card at excellent. High of 76 F, wind to 9 mph.

Where roughly, what depth, what bait. Skip anything you want to keep secret.
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Before you go

License

Florida requires a valid fishing license for adults. Buy online from the state agency; one-day options exist for visitors.

Regulations

Florida saltwater rules: speckled trout limits differ in the Big Bend zone and redfish status should be verified with FWC. Scallop season runs summer only, with its own limits.

Access

Public ramp on Riverside Drive in Steinhatchee, private marinas with launches and rentals, and Steinhatchee Falls upriver for paddle craft.

About this water

A spring-and-swamp river entering Deadman Bay at Steinhatchee, Taylor County, Florida: the hub of Big Bend inshore fishing.

Fishing Steinhatchee: the full guide

A fishery with a zip code

Steinhatchee is what happens when a whole town organizes around inshore fishing: the river drops over a small rock rapid at Steinhatchee Falls, winds past fish camps, and empties into a marked channel that fans onto miles of seagrass in every direction. Deadman Bay’s flats hold speckled trout in numbers that made the town’s name, with redfish working the rocky points and creek mouths on the bigger tides.

The trout program

From spring through fall, drift the three-to-six-foot grass north toward Rocky Creek or south toward Pepperfish Keys, throwing popping corks with shrimp-pattern plastics or suspending twitchbaits over the potholes. Bigger gator trout eat topwaters at first light in skinny water. Winter pulls trout into the river itself: the deep bends upstream of town become a slow-jig fishery when fronts drop water temps, and the crowd thins to the faithful.

Reds, and the summer sideshow

Redfish school on the outside bars and oyster edges, best on the last two hours of incoming tide with gold spoons or cut mullet. July opens scallop season and the flats fill with snorkelers: fish dawn or run further from the channel to keep your water. The offshore-curious can hit shallow rock piles a few miles out for gag grouper in the fall when they push in to 15 feet.

Working the channel

Tides rule everything: the outside flats go unfishably thin on negative lows, and the marked channel is the only safe run at low water. The local station gives the rhythm with a modest offset upriver. Sea Hag and the public ramp at the end of Riverside Drive handle launching; the fish camps rent skiffs to visitors who would rather not tow.

Common questions

When do trout move into the river?

Once hard fronts push water temps into the 50s, typically December through February. Slow soft plastics in the deep river bends produce all winter.

Is Steinhatchee good for a first flats trip?

Yes: the channel is well marked, guides are plentiful, and the trout drift-fishing is forgiving. Respect low tide and you will stay off the rocks.

What about scallops and fishing together?

In summer, scallop in the afternoon and fish dawn: the fleet pressure after 9 AM moves fish off the near flats.

Is fishing good at Steinhatchee right now?

Check the daily report at the top of this page: it is regenerated every morning from live data. Today's read: Fair. Fish the windows. A steady pattern: dawn and dusk carry the day.

Nearby waters

Saint Marks River56 miHomosassa75 miOrange Lake75 miLake Talquin88 miApalachicola Bay96 miLake Seminole114 mi

Where this page's numbers come from

Tide predictions
NOAA CO-OPS 8727695 — Steinhatchee River Entrance
Harmonic predictions, datum MLLW, local time. 12 high and low events returned for today and the next two days. A prediction, not a measured water level: wind and surge move the real thing.
Weather and pressure
Open-Meteo forecast model
Queried at 29.6710, -83.3870 in this water's own timezone. A model, not an observation.
Moon and solunar windows
Calculated on this site
Astronomical calculation from these coordinates and the date, not a third-party feed. How much weight it deserves.
The written guide on this page
Pablo Ruiz Quintero
How this page was made. The daily report is computed by our scoring engine from live readings; nobody types it. The written guide was drafted with AI assistance. Unlike our newer pages, it does not yet list the official pages its facts were checked against: that audit is under way, and anything it cannot verify will be taken out. Pablo Ruiz Quintero sets every guideline, the data-verification system and the minimum standards a page must meet to be published, reviews page structure and approves what goes live; the responsibility is his, and the AI carries out the work. We work this way because it is how one person can keep every page current with named sources. Errors are published in the verification log; the full policy is in the editorial policy.

Readings refresh on a 30-minute window. The full method, with every figure and its source, is on how our reports are made. Something wrong here? Tell us and it goes in the log with the date.