Inshore & surf · Saltwater
Common snook
Centropomus undecimalis
Native tropical and subtropical estuarine fish at the northern edge of its range in the southeastern United States. Protandric: individuals begin life as males and some reverse sex to female. The northern limit is thermal, not habitat-driven, and it has been moving: snook began appearing around 29 degrees N on Florida's Gulf coast from 2007 and by 2018 showed exponential growth with evidence of local reproduction, tracking a significant decline since 2000 in the number of days below the species' lethal limit (Purtlebaugh et al. 2020).
Also called Snook, linesider, robalo.
- Inshore
- Regulated context
- 4 of 4 overlays reviewed
- Reviewed 2026-08-27
Before you target this fish
Regulated context — check the rules for the exact water
Where this applies Florida runs nine snook management regions with different slot limits and different closed-season dates; FWC states its snook rules apply in inland, state and adjacent federal waters. Texas and other Gulf states manage snook separately and much more restrictively.
The reviewed context, unedited
Snook are closed to harvest for part of every year in every Florida region, and the closures do not share dates. Six regions close 1 December to the end of February and again from 1 May (through 31 August in four regions, through 30 September in two); three regions close 15 December to 31 January and 1 June to 31 August. Slot limits are 28-33 in total length in six regions and 28-32 in in three. A snook permit is required in addition to a recreational licence, hook and line is the only legal gear, and there is no commercial harvest or sale. Confirm the region, the date and the permit before keeping a fish.
Rules for this fish change at a state line and sometimes inside one. Check the ones that apply to the exact water you are standing on before you act on anything here — this record is biology, not permission.
Take this somewhere
This page is the record. The reading is what happens when you add water, a season and a temperature to it — that is where the families below get ranked against each other instead of just listed.
Those three links carry the fish and nothing else. No conditions were declared on this page, so none travel, and the link says so rather than sending an empty reading.
The half nobody publishes
What this record does not know
Everything else on this page comes from a named agency or peer-reviewed source. This is the other side of that: the questions a reviewer went looking for an answer to and came back without, and the fields the record leaves empty because filling them would mean guessing.
It is here rather than at the bottom because a page that only shows what it knows is easy to read as a page that knows everything. For Common snook there are 22 of them.
Named by a reviewer
19Somebody looked for this and wrote down that they did not find it.
- Behaviour
Nobody has sourced:
- diel tendency: no source located, so no feeding-light window is asserted
- tide stage: FWC establishes that snook face moving water while hunting, but no source located specifies flooding versus ebbing tide, so no tide-stage preference is recorded
- water clarity response with primary-source support
- angling pressure response with primary-source support
- territoriality and aggression: no source located, fields omitted
- a warm-edge temperature; the thermal literature for this species is almost entirely about the cold edge
- Identification
Nobody has sourced:
- swordspine snook separation: no agency key was captured, so the similar-species entry states the uncertainty rather than a distinction
- a single typical adult length; FWC publishes maxima and maturity sizes rather than a mean
- regional colour variation and spawning coloration: no agency source located, fields omitted
- the two FWC pages give different maximum weights (38 lb and 50 lb); both are recorded rather than reconciled
- Forage
Nobody has sourced:
- no quantitative stomach-content study was located for this record, so this dossier rests on agency prey lists alone and is marked partial
- young-of-year and juvenile diet: not described in the sources used, fields omitted
- ontogenetic shift and prey-size shifts: no source located, fields omitted
- seasonal diet: no source located, field omitted
- whether larger_prey_fish belongs in primaryForage; FWC's profile says large crustaceans and fish but the itemised prey list is small-fish scale, so the class is withheld
- Season
Nobody has sourced:
- tide stage by season: FWC establishes current-facing ambush but no source located resolves it to flooding or ebbing tide, so no seasonal entry names a tide stage
- seasonal forage emphasis: no source located breaks snook diet down by season
- surf and beach seasonality: FWC lists beaches as adult habitat but the use overlaps the spawning closure, so no surf entry is written
- closed-season dates are as published by FWC at review and change by rulemaking; they are context, not a substitute for checking
Absent from the record
3No reviewer wrote a gap here. The field is simply empty, which is its own answer.
- Water temperature
No agency or peer-reviewed temperature band for Common snook was found that a review would accept. The reading runs without one rather than borrowing a number from a related fish.
- Identification
No reviewed image. A photograph is only in this catalog when an agency or a named creator labelled the subject, and nobody has cleared one for this species yet.
- Population context
No regional population profile is registered. The species-level reading stands on its own; it does not silently become a local one.
Where the record puts it
Water and range
Inshore
6 reviewed holding classes- Mangrove edge
- Tidal creek
- Creek mouth
- Channel edge
- Grass flat
- Bridge piling
DepthShallow and edge-oriented for most of the year, but capable of dropping deep for thermal reasons. Getz et al. 2025 found tagged snook spending the coldest months in a deep (20 m plus) channelised reach with their highest residency times of the year in winter, consistent with seeking thermal stability.
Moving waterCurrent-facing ambush. FWC describes snook as conservative ambush predators that orient to face moving water while hunting. That is the clearest single behavioural statement in the agency literature for this species and it is a tide statement in an estuary: the fish sets up facing the flow and lets the water bring food past it.
LightFWC records gamete release in the late afternoon and early evening, which is a reproductive timing statement rather than a feeding-light statement. No agency or peer-reviewed source located for this record establishes a general diel feeding preference for common snook, and none is asserted.
Thermal band
Temperature
No reviewed temperature band
Nobody publishes a preferred or active temperature range for Common snook that a review would accept. Borrowing one from a related fish would look like knowledge and behave like a guess, so the reading runs without it and says which parts of the answer that weakens.
How it uses water
Behaviour
Outside the spawning period the agency description is of a structure-associated ambush predator rather than an obligate schooler.
FWC describes snook as conservative ambush predators and records that they orient to face moving water while hunting. Prey listed by FWC includes sardines, thread herring, tilapia, mojarras, killifishes, grunts and small blue crabs. The ambush is set against current, not run down in open water.
No agency or peer-reviewed source located for this record establishes a general diel feeding preference. FWC records gamete release in the late afternoon and early evening, which is reproductive timing, not a feeding window, and it is not carried over.
Seasonal activityA strong seasonal cycle organised around temperature and reproduction. FWC describes mature fish wintering in the low-salinity portions of the upper estuary and moving toward spawning water in late spring and early summer, with Atlantic-coast fish migrating further than Gulf-coast fish. Getz et al. 2025 recorded seasonal movement in a channelised estuary with fish moving coastward from April, peaking in August, and reversing in autumn and winter, individuals averaging 56.6 km travelled while retaining year-round site fidelity to the system.
Temperature-driven behaviourThis is the defining constraint on the species and it is unusually well quantified. FWC states snook become lethargic below 65 degrees F and historically placed the northern limit at the 50 degrees F water isotherm. Hall-Scharf et al. 2025 (Marine and Coastal Fisheries) measured a graded response under realistic cooling: feeding ceased at 11.6 degrees C in small juveniles and 16.0 degrees C in large juveniles, and death followed at 8.6 and 9.2 degrees C respectively, with salinity modulating the threshold non-linearly (death at 9.2 degrees C at 3 and 30 practical salinity units but 10.1 degrees C at 15). Hall-Scharf et al. 2025 (Estuaries and Coasts) found northern-range fish ceasing feeding at 14.4 degrees C and dying at 8.6 degrees C, with individual chronic lethal minima spanning 7.9-10.5 degrees C, and noted that fish lost equilibrium almost 2 degrees C warmer under rapid than under chronic cooling. Purtlebaugh et al. 2020 gives a working lethal threshold of about 12 degrees C. The consequence is documented at population scale: the winter of 2009-2010 produced an extreme cold kill of snook reaching as far south as the Everglades, substantially altering abundance and angler catch, with recovery taking up to four years depending on location, and Blewett and Stevens 2014 recorded dead common snook at 43 sites after the January 2010 cold event. TPWD listed snook among the species killed in the February 2021 Texas freeze.
Depth movementShallow and edge-bound for most of the year, deep in winter for thermal reasons. Getz et al. 2025 recorded highest residency of the year in a deep channelised reach during the coldest months. Purtlebaugh et al. 2020 note that persistence at the northern range edge may depend on access to groundwater springs providing warm-water refuge in winter, and that snook shelter in rivers and tidal creeks seasonally.
Facing the currentFWC: snook orient to face moving water while hunting. In an estuary that makes tide the axis the fish sets itself against.
Cold frontsDocumented and severe. The response sequence under cooling is cessation of feeding, then loss of equilibrium, then death, and the temperature span between the first and last step is only a few degrees (Hall-Scharf et al. 2025). Fish move to thermally stable water, deep channels, upper-estuary reaches and spring-influenced water, ahead of and during cold events. Florida closes the fishery from December through February in six of its nine regions, and FWC states plainly that the seasonal closures protect snook during cold periods as well as during spawning.
CoverMangrove shorelines, seagrass beds and hard structure (FWC). Juvenile habitat is specifically described as carrying overhanging vegetation for shade and structural cover.
Open waterFWC lists beaches among adult habitat, but that use overlaps the spawning period and the Florida closed season, so it is carried here as biological context only and generates no holding classes or presentations in this record.
Predator avoidanceNot sourced beyond the juvenile cover description; no agency or peer-reviewed statement located, field otherwise left unpopulated.
Spawning (conservation context)FWC gives a spawning season from April or May through September or October, with gamete release in the late afternoon and early evening, individual females spawning as often as every two days and releasing roughly 1.25 million eggs per episode. Snook form spawning schools. The species is protandric: males reverse sex to female in the autumn following the spawning season, sometimes within about 90 days, typically between ages one and seven. Recorded here as conservation context. This record does not describe where spawning schools form; the May-to-August and May-to-September closures exist to protect that concentration and this catalog will not undercut them.
Where the general rule stops
- Two closed periods per year, on region-specific dates, and neither is intuitive. Assume the season is closed until you have checked.
- The winter closure is a cold-protection closure, not only a spawning closure. FWC states the seasonal closures protect snook during cold periods and during the height of the spawning season.
- A cold-stressed snook is not a normal fish to handle. Cessation of feeding, then loss of equilibrium, then death is the documented sequence, and the temperature gap between the first and last step is only a few degrees.
- Adults use open beach during the warm months. That use overlaps the spawning period and the closed season, so this record declares no surf holding classes and gives no surf presentations.
What it can eat
Forage
- Small forage fish
- Crustaceans
FWC lists natural prey as sardines, thread herring, tilapia, mojarras, killifishes, grunts and small blue crabs, and the species profile summarises it as fish and large crustaceans. The taking of that prey is an ambush against moving water, not a pursuit. Capacity for any of this is not evidence that a bait event is happening now.
- Feeding style
- Opportunistic
- Feeding zone
- Mixed
By life stage
- Adult
- FWC: sardines, thread herring, tilapia, mojarras, killifishes, grunts and small blue crabs.
SubstitutionsThe FWC prey list spans clupeids, cichlids, mojarras, killifishes and grunts, which is a list of whatever small fish the local estuary holds rather than a specialisation. Substitution is therefore system-specific, but no regional table was sourced.
Diet capacity is not proof that a bait event is occurring. Observed current forage still comes from a user observation or Hatch Match.
Through the year
Season
Winter
- Where they sit
- Thermal refuge: deep channels, the low-salinity upper estuary, and spring-influenced river and creek water.
- Depth
- Deepest of the year. Getz et al. 2025 recorded the highest residency times of the year in a deep channelised reach during the coldest months.
- Movement
- FWC describes mature fish wintering in the low-salinity portions of the upper estuary. Purtlebaugh et al. 2020 note reliance on groundwater-spring refuge at the northern range edge.
- Temperature
- The dangerous season. Lethargy below 65 degrees F (FWC); feeding ceases somewhere in the 11.6-16.0 degrees C band depending on fish size; death follows at 8.6-9.2 degrees C. The 2009-2010 cold event killed snook as far south as the Everglades and took up to four years to recover from.
What that changesNone is offered for this season. The fishery is closed to harvest across Florida during most of it, the fish are thermally compromised, and this record declines to point at refuge water.
What would count against it
- treating a winter refuge concentration as an opportunity
- assuming the season is open because the previous region's dates said so
Six Florida regions are closed 1 December to the end of February and three are closed 15 December to 31 January. FWC states the closures protect snook during cold periods as well as during spawning. Handling a cold-stressed fish adds to a mortality event that is already underway.
Early spring
- Where they sit
- Mangrove edge, tidal creek, creek mouth and channel edge as fish leave winter refuge water.
- Movement
- Getz et al. 2025 recorded coastward movement beginning in April.
- Temperature
- Rising back above the 65 degrees F lethargy threshold FWC describes.
- Current
- The ambush resumes: FWC describes snook orienting to face moving water while hunting, so the working feature is a current-worked edge rather than still water.
What that changesStructure pitch at mangrove and hard structure; live or natural bait suspension and tidal drift bait on edges the tide is already working.
What would count against it
- fishing slack water on the assumption that the fish will come to a static bait
Spring
- Where they sit
- Mangrove edge, grass flat, tidal creek and creek mouth; hard structure through the estuary.
- Movement
- FWC describes mature fish moving toward spawning water in late spring and early summer, Atlantic-coast fish further than Gulf-coast fish.
What that changesStructure pitch, live or natural bait suspension and tidal drift bait against moving water; horizontal retrieve along mangrove and structure edges.
What would count against it
- reading the pre-spawning movement as a targeting cue
- assuming the harvest season runs through May
The spawning season opens in this window, April or May by the FWC account, and the Florida closures follow it from 1 May or 1 June depending on region. This record describes no spawning concentration.
Early summer
- Where they sit
- Mangrove edge, grass flat and hard structure for non-spawning fish.
What that changesUnchanged from spring for fish outside the spawning concentration. The spawning period generates no new approach in this record.
What would count against it
- converting the spawning period into a presentation change
- keeping a fish during a closed period
Closed to harvest across all nine Florida regions for part or all of this window: 1 May onward in six regions, 1 June onward in three. Spawning is at or near its height.
Summer
- Where they sit
- Mangrove edge, grass flat, tidal creek and hard structure. FWC also lists beaches for adults; that use is carried as biological context only in this record because it coincides with the spawning period and the closure.
- Movement
- Getz et al. 2025 recorded coastward movement peaking in August.
What that changesStructure pitch and live or natural bait suspension on current-worked edges, as in spring. Nothing new is derived from the spawning period.
What would count against it
- treating a warm-month concentration as a target
- extending an inshore approach onto open beach on the strength of this record
Closed to harvest in every Florida region for all or nearly all of this window. Spawning continues.
Late summer
- Where they sit
- Mangrove edge, grass flat, tidal creek and hard structure.
What that changesStructure pitch, live or natural bait suspension, tidal drift bait, horizontal retrieve.
What would count against it
- assuming a region reopened on 1 September when two of the nine did not
Spawning runs through September or October in the FWC account. Two Florida regions remain closed through 30 September; the remainder reopen from 1 September.
Fall
- Where they sit
- Mangrove edge, tidal creek, creek mouth and channel edge as fish begin the movement back toward upper-estuary and channel water.
- Movement
- Getz et al. 2025 recorded the direction reversing in autumn and winter. FWC describes the sex change from male to female occurring in the autumn following the spawning season.
- Temperature
- Still comfortably above the cold thresholds, but the season in which the winter refuge pattern begins to set up.
- Current
- Current-facing ambush on tide-worked edges continues.
What that changesStructure pitch, tidal drift bait and live or natural bait suspension against moving water; stop-and-go where a slower presentation suits the edge.
What would count against it
- assuming autumn conditions persist through the first cold front
Late fall
- Where they sit
- Transition toward the winter position: channel edge, tidal creek and the low-salinity upper estuary.
- Temperature
- The first fronts of the season take water toward the 65 degrees F lethargy threshold. The gap from lethargy to lethal is only a few degrees for this species.
What that changesStructure pitch and live or natural bait suspension on the edges still holding fish. Do not follow fish into refuge water.
What would count against it
- following a cold front into thermal refuge water
- assuming the season is still open in December
Closures begin again on 1 December in six regions and 15 December in three.
Spawning · Spring, Early summer, Summer, Late summer
FWC gives a spawning season from April or May through September or October, with gametes released in the late afternoon and early evening and individual females spawning as often as every two days. Snook form spawning schools. Recorded here as conservation context only. This record deliberately does not describe where spawning fish gather; Florida's May-to-August or May-to-September closures exist to protect exactly that concentration.
Recorded as conservation context. No spawning site, staging concentration or migration bottleneck is named anywhere in this catalog, because naming one is how a population gets fished out.
Telling it apart
Identification
What to look at
- A prominent black lateral line running the length of the body and continuing onto the tail. This is the trait that names the fish and it is shared across the genus.
- Large mouth with a protruding lower jaw and a sloping forehead.
- Pelvic fin yellow in colour (FWC).
- High, divided dorsal fin.
- Six anal fin rays. Tarpon snook, the one congener with seven, is separated on this count.
- Average adult length
- FWC gives females reaching about 48 in and males about 39 in as maxima; typical adult length is not given as a single agency figure. Legal Florida fish sit at 28-33 in total length, and FWC notes females reach legal minimum size in about four years and males in five to six.
- Common angling size
- Florida slot limits place retained fish at 28-33 in total length in six regions and 28-32 in in three.
- Typical weight
- FWC gives up to 38 lb in Florida waters in one account and up to 50 lb in the profile; the Florida state record is 45 lb 12 oz. A slot fish is well under those figures.
- Maximum documented
- FWC gives 48 in and 38 lb in the research sketch and up to 48 in and 50 lb in the species profile, with a state record of 45 lb 12 oz.
- Longevity
- FWC gives about 21 years for females and about 15 years for males.
What it gets confused with
- Fat snook (Centropomus parallelus)
- Fat snook have a distinctly deeper body than common snook and a mouth extending below the centre of the eye, top out around 28 in against 48 in, and occur in freshwater more than the other snook. Both carry the black lateral line onto the tail, so body depth and size are the working separators.
- Tarpon snook (Centropomus pectinatus)
- Tarpon snook have seven anal fin rays where the others have six, an upward-curving lower jaw, pelvic fin tips reaching past the anus, and a compressed body. They are small, around 15 in and occasionally to 22 in. The fin-ray count is definitive.
- Swordspine snook (Centropomus ensiferus)
- A small congener separated within the genus on fin and spine characters; this catalog does not hold a reviewed record for it and no agency key was captured for this entry. Treat any small snook as unidentified until the anal fin rays and body depth have been checked.
What follows from all of that
Presentation families
Inshore
Structure pitch
Put a bait tight against hard structure and get it out again before the tide sweeps it into the barnacles.
- accurate short casts
- immediate contact
- lead them out
- expect abrasion
What it asks of the tackle
- Depth control
- Moderate
- Sensitivity
- High
- Casting distance
- Short
- Weight range
- 1/8–3/4 oz
- Cover resistance
- High
- Line visibility
- Secondary
- Retie frequency
- Very high
Live / natural bait suspension
Present a natural food form with enough life or scent to hold in a station without looking mechanical.
- keep it alive or fresh
- match the holding depth
- minimize hardware bulk
- detect without pulling it away
What it asks of the tackle
- Depth control
- High
- Sensitivity
- High
- Casting distance
- Short to moderate
- Weight range
- As light as conditions allow
- Cover resistance
- Moderate
- Line visibility
- Low
- Retie frequency
- High
Tidal drift bait
Let a natural bait travel at the speed of the tide along an edge fish are feeding on.
- match weight to the run
- stay in the seam
- let it swing at the end
- reset up-tide
What it asks of the tackle
- Depth control
- Moderate
- Sensitivity
- High
- Casting distance
- Short to moderate
- Weight range
- 1/8–1 oz
- Cover resistance
- Moderate
- Line visibility
- Low
- Retie frequency
- High
Horizontal retrieve
Move a swimming bait through a chosen depth band along structure or open water.
- count down
- steady or pulsing retrieve
- keep the band
- cover the edge
What it asks of the tackle
- Depth control
- Moderate
- Sensitivity
- Moderate
- Casting distance
- Moderate to long
- Weight range
- 1/8–1/2 oz
- Cover resistance
- Moderate
- Line visibility
- Low
- Retie frequency
- Low
Stop-and-go
Imitate injured or hesitating prey by mixing travel with pauses that hold the bait in the strike zone.
- travel
- pause
- keep depth on the pause
- restart without jumping the band
What it asks of the tackle
- Depth control
- High
- Sensitivity
- High
- Casting distance
- Moderate
- Weight range
- 1/8–3/8 oz
- Cover resistance
- Moderate
- Line visibility
- Low
- Retie frequency
- Moderate
What moves them for this fish
Reviewed rules that push particular families up when the conditions match. Each one names the conditions it needs and why it exists, so you can disagree with it.
FWC describes snook as conservative ambush predators that orient to face moving water and let it deliver food past them, which favors working a bait or lure past structure the current is running along rather than searching for the fish. The rule fires on either tide direction rather than one specifically, because no source resolved the behavior to flood versus ebb.
When
Inshore · Mangrove edge, Tidal creek, Creek mouth, Channel edge · Flooding or Ebbing
Moves up
Structure pitch, Tidal drift bait, Live / natural bait suspension, Horizontal retrieve
Reviewed 2026-08-30
Where every sentence came from
Sources
Agency
FWC, A Sketch of the Common Snook in Florida
Used for habitat, thermal band and presentation families; identification; behaviour; forage; season. Read 2026-08-30, next check 2026-11-27.
Agency
FWC common snook species profile
Used for habitat, thermal band and presentation families; identification; behaviour; forage; season. Read 2026-08-30, next check 2026-11-27.
Agency
TPWD news release, 23 February 2021, winter weather fish kills on the Texas coast
Used for habitat, thermal band and presentation families; behaviour. Read 2026-08-30, next check 2026-11-27.
Agency
FWC snook recreational regulations
Used for identification; season. Read 2026-08-30, next check 2026-12-02.
Agency
FWC snook recreational regulations (nine Florida management regions, two closed periods per year)
Used for habitat, thermal band and presentation families. Read 2026-08-27, next check 2026-11-27.
Agency
Used for identification. Read 2026-08-30, next check 2026-12-02.
Agency
FWC tarpon snook species profile
Used for identification. Read 2026-08-30, next check 2026-12-02.
Peer reviewed
Hall-Scharf, Tuckett, Stevens, Trotter, Patterson and Hill 2025, Marine and Coastal Fisheries 17(4):vtaf023
Used for behaviour; season. Read 2026-08-30, next check 2026-11-29.
Peer reviewed
Purtlebaugh, Martin and Allen 2020, PLOS ONE 15(6):e0234083
Used for behaviour; season. Read 2026-08-30, next check 2026-11-29.
Peer reviewed
Blewett and Stevens 2014, Gulf of Mexico Science 32(1)
Used for behaviour; season. Read 2026-08-30, next check 2026-11-29.
Peer reviewed
Getz, Rodriquez and Kline 2025, Marine and Coastal Fisheries 17(5):vtaf027
Used for behaviour; season. Read 2026-08-30, next check 2026-11-29.
Peer reviewed
Purtlebaugh, Martin and Allen 2020, poleward expansion of common snook in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico, PLOS ONE 15(6):e0234083
Used for habitat, thermal band and presentation families. Read 2026-08-27, next check 2026-11-27.
Peer reviewed
Hall-Scharf, Tuckett, Stevens and Hill 2025, increased cold tolerance of a tropical fish species at the northern edge of its expanded range, Estuaries and Coasts 48:43
Used for habitat, thermal band and presentation families. Read 2026-08-27, next check 2026-11-27.
Peer reviewed
Hall-Scharf, Tuckett, Stevens, Trotter, Patterson and Hill 2025, how body size and salinity affects thermal tolerance of a range-expanding fish, Marine and Coastal Fisheries 17(4):vtaf023
Used for habitat, thermal band and presentation families. Read 2026-08-27, next check 2026-11-27.
Peer reviewed
Blewett and Stevens 2014, temperature variability in a subtropical estuary and implications for common snook, a cold-sensitive fish, Gulf of Mexico Science 32(1)
Used for habitat, thermal band and presentation families. Read 2026-08-27, next check 2026-11-27.
Peer reviewed
Getz, Rodriquez and Kline 2025, season and red tide influence common snook movement and residency in a channelized estuary, Marine and Coastal Fisheries 17(5):vtaf027
Used for habitat, thermal band and presentation families. Read 2026-08-27, next check 2026-11-27.
Peer reviewed
Hall-Scharf, Tuckett, Stevens and Hill 2025, Estuaries and Coasts 48:43
Used for behaviour. Read 2026-08-30, next check 2026-11-29.
A source with no link predates the rule that one has to carry a URL. It is still a real citation and still checkable; it just takes a search rather than a click, and that is worth knowing before you rely on it.