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Tampa Bay Fishing Report

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

Florida's big urban estuary: 400 square miles of grass flats, mangroves and a snook-redfish-trout slam within sight of downtown.

3/5
Fair. Fish the windows.A steady pattern: dawn and dusk carry the day.
Next tide
Low 7:02 PM
Air / High
76 / 79 F
Wind
NE 12 mph

Sources: NOAA tides 8726520, 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.

Tampa Bay lines up a genuinely fishable day across the board. Today brings clear skies, wind NE around 12 mph, steady pressure near 1018 hPa and a high of 79. Tides: high 12:46 AM and 1:06 PM, low 6:51 AM and 7:02 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 10:06 AM-12:06 PM and 10:33 PM-12:33 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 80 F. The solunar majors shift about 50 minutes later.Next report: Sat, Oct 24, 6:30 AMHow this report is made β†’

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 β†’

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 8726520 (St. Petersburg). Fish the moving water either side of each change.

Fri
HIGH12:46 AM2.1 ft
LOW6:51 AM0.8 ft
HIGH1:06 PM2.2 ft
LOW7:02 PM1.0 ft
Sat
HIGH12:57 AM2.3 ft
LOW7:33 AM0.5 ft
HIGH1:58 PM2.1 ft
LOW7:26 PM1.2 ft

St. Petersburg tide chart: the week and the month β†’

Right now

Latest readings

Air temp76 F
High / Low79 / 62 F
WindNE 12-14 mph
Pressure1017.8 hPa, steady
Sky / Rain0% cloud, 0%
Sunrise / Sunset07:35 / 18:53
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 Tampa Bay this week

Today is the pick of the week on Tampa Bay, at 3 out of 5.

Best day this week: today, Oct 23 β€” fair at 3/5, steady pressure, neither help nor hindrance.

Today, Oct 23 β€” Fair

A steady pattern: dawn and dusk carry the day.

Solunar majors
10:06 AM-12:06 PM and 10:33 PM-12:33 AM
Minor period
4:27 AM-5:27 AM
Sun
07:35 to 18:53
Moon
Waxing Gibbous, 91% lit
Sky and wind
Clear, 19 mph
Rain chance
0%

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

Species guide

The species that matter on Tampa Bay: 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 Tampa Bay 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 Tampa Bay today, and we feature the best catch of the week.

Water log, last days

Auto-logged from live data
Thu, Oct 22

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 15 mph.

Wed, Oct 21

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 82 F, wind to 18 mph.

Tue, Oct 20

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 80 F, wind to 18 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 license. Snook: tightly-managed slot and seasons (closed in winter cold and summer spawn windows): always confirm current FWC dates.

Access

Skyway Fishing Pier State Park (the world's longest fishing pier), Fort De Soto, Gandy and Courtney Campbell shorelines, dozens of kayak launches.

About this water

Tampa Bay, Hillsborough/Pinellas/Manatee counties, FL. Florida's largest open-water estuary.

Fishing Tampa Bay: the full guide

The everything estuary

Tampa Bay packs the full Florida inshore experience into one urban bay: snook in the mangroves, redfish tailing on the flats, gator trout over deep grass, tarpon rolling under the Skyway each spring, and sheepshead wallpapering every piling in winter. Four hundred square miles means the fleet disappears into it.

Seasons of the bay

Spring: tarpon staging at the Skyway and passes, snook waking on the flats. Summer: mangrove snook at night, early trout, storms by 2 PM. Fall: redfish schools of a hundred roaming the south shore flats, big snook feeding down. Winter: negative low tides expose the flats: sight-fishing reds in potholes, trout in the channels, sheepshead everywhere.

The winter negative lows

Tampa Bay's secret season rides winter's negative low tides: morning minus-tides drain the flats, podding redfish into potholes and channels where they cannot hide. Sight-fishermen pole the exposed edges of Weedon Island and Fort De Soto picking targets; snook stack the warm-water outflows and deep canals. Summer gets the tarpon headlines: winter belongs to the hunters.

Common questions

When is tarpon season at the Skyway?

April through July, peaking May-June: staging schools roll the bridge shadow lines and passes at dawn. Live crabs on the hill tides is the signature game.

When is tarpon season in Tampa Bay?

May-July: the Skyway bridge area and Egmont channels stack migrating poons. Pass crabs on the hill tides: the bay hosts one of the Gulf's great migrations.

Is fishing good at Tampa Bay 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

Clearwater19 miSarasota30 miVenice47 miHomosassa70 miBoca Grande75 miLake Tohopekaliga82 mi

Where this page's numbers come from

Tide predictions
NOAA CO-OPS 8726520 β€” St. Petersburg
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 27.7620, -82.6270 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.