← All species · Fishing guide

Southwest Florida · Inshore

Spotted seatrout

Also called speckled trout, specks

Open year-round, a three-fish limit, and the easiest legal dinner on a grass flat.

Spotted seatrout are open year-round in Southwest Florida with a 15"–19" slot and a three-fish-per-person daily limit. They hold over turtle grass in two to five feet of water across Pine Island Sound, Estero Bay and Charlotte Harbor, and they are the most reliable way to put a legal fish in the box on a flat.

Check the rule before you fish, every time.

The figures on this page were taken from FWC on August 3, 2026 and seasons here change year to year. FWC: Spotted Seatrout is the authority — a citation is written against the rule in effect that day.

Size and bag limits

Season
Open year-round (Southwest region)
Slot limit
Not less than 15" or more than 19" total length
Bag limit
3 fish per person per day
Source

Full regional table: SWFL season & regulation calendar.

Where

Where to find spotted seatrout in Lee, Collier & Charlotte

Turtle grass flats in 2–5 feet
The core habitat. Grass with sand potholes through it is better than uniform grass.
Deeper grass edges and drop-offs
Where fish move when the sun gets high or the water gets cold.
Charlotte Harbor east and west walls
Miles of productive grass, and the reason Punta Gorda is a trout town.
Estero Bay and Pine Island Sound
Consistent numbers, easy access, plenty of water to spread out over.

Catchable from shore at Bunche Beach Preserve (San Carlos Bay), Ponce de Leon Park (Punta Gorda), Port Charlotte Beach Park — access, parking and pier details on our Southwest Florida shore spots page.

When

When they bite

Fish move with water temperature, not the calendar. These windows are guidance, and a cold front or a warm winter shifts every one of them.

Year-round
No closed season in the Southwest region.
Late fall through spring
The best of it. Cooler water pushes fish shallow and they feed hard through the middle of the day.
Summer
Fish move to deeper grass edges and feed early. Midday sun on shallow flats shuts them off.
Tackle & bait

What to fish

Tackle

  • 7' light or medium-light spinning rod, 2500 size reel
  • 10 lb braid with 20 lb fluorocarbon leader
  • A popping cork is the single most effective tool on this list for finding fish fast

Baits and lures

  • Live shrimp under a popping cork — hard to beat, easy to buy
  • Soft-plastic paddle tails on a 1/8–1/4 oz jighead
  • Live pilchards when you can net them
  • Topwater at dawn over shallow grass, worked steadily

Rig it with the knots we actually use — leader-to-braid and hook knots, with text steps.

How

How to fish for spotted seatrout

A popping cork does two jobs: it holds the bait at the depth fish are feeding, and the pop imitates a fish striking the surface, which pulls trout in from well outside casting range. Cast, pop it once hard, let it sit, repeat. Most strikes come during the pause.

Trout school. One fish usually means several, so when you catch one, stop moving and fan-cast the same area before running to the next spot. Drifting a flat and marking where the bites happen is a better search pattern than picking one anchor spot and waiting.

The slot is narrow — 15" to 19" — so a lot of fish come over the rail either just short or just long. Measure rather than eyeball; the difference between a legal trout and a citation is about an inch.

Common questions

What people get wrong

Eyeballing the slot
15"–19" is tight. Carry a measuring device and use it every time.
Fishing shallow grass at midday in summer
Move to deeper edges, or fish at first light instead.
Leaving fish to find fish
They school. Work the area that produced before running.

Regulation figures retrieved from FWC: Spotted Seatrout on August 3, 2026. Everything else on this page is fishing guidance, not a sourced claim, and is written as such: no catch statistics, no invented studies. Seasons and limits change — verify at myfwc.com before you keep a fish.