Florida fishing rules
License, gear, and the statewide limits FWC publishes for major species. Water-specific rules replace these numbers. Last checked October 2026.
License
- Who needs one
- The license follows the fish, not the water. Attempting to take freshwater fish requires a freshwater fishing license. Attempting to take saltwater fish or other native or nonnative marine organisms, including crabs, lobsters, and marine plants, requires a saltwater fishing license. Casting a line, including catch-and-release, is enough to need the license. People on board who are not fishing do not need one, and they may not help by tying leaders, netting fish, or unhooking fish. Only licensed anglers, or people legally exempt, may contribute a bag limit.
- Residents
- Residency is proved with a Florida driver license or identification card that shows a Florida address and is verified by the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, or with the other residency documents listed on the license page, including military orders for active-duty members and immediate family stationed in Florida. Residents 65 or older with proof of age and residency are exempt, and an optional no-cost Resident 65+ certificate is available. Residents may also fish without a freshwater license in their home county with live or natural bait on a pole or line that has no line-retrieval mechanism, for noncommercial purposes. That cane-pole exemption does not cover a fish management area. A valid Georgia fishing license covers the Florida side of the St. Marys River and Lake Seminole, not the tributary creeks in Florida.
- Nonresidents
- Visitors need a Florida freshwater or saltwater license unless a specific exemption applies. Being on the National Saltwater Angler Registry does not replace the Florida saltwater license. Short-term and annual licenses are sold online and can be used immediately. Youth under 16, resident or visitor, do not need a recreational fishing or hunting license and may be asked for proof of age. They still have to follow gear, season, bag, and size rules.
- Free fishing days
- License-free days waive the recreational license for residents and visitors. Every other rule still applies. Freshwater: the first consecutive Saturday and Sunday in April, and the second consecutive Saturday and Sunday in June. In 2026 those weekends are April 4–5 and June 13–14. Saltwater: the first consecutive Saturday and Sunday in June, the first Saturday in September, and the Saturday after Thanksgiving. In 2026 those dates are June 6–7, September 5, and November 28. The saltwater waiver also covers other recreational harvest that needs a saltwater license, such as crabbing, lobstering, and scalloping, and it waives the snook and spiny lobster permits.
Seasons and closures
Freshwater season
The statewide freshwater bag limits are open year-round except where a water, a spring, or a fish management area is closed or has its own season. The freshwater booklet in effect for this summary runs July 1, 2026, through June 30, 2027. The Florida Administrative Code is the final authority if the booklet and a rule disagree.
Closed springs and bass releases
Fishing is prohibited in and within 50 yards of Silver Glen Springs and Salt Springs, and from the headwaters of Rainbow Springs to a point one mile downstream on Rainbow River. Several management areas require an immediate release of black bass, including Wildcat Lake, the Stick Marsh, and Fellsmere. Read the fish-management-area pages before fishing a named lake.
Snook, red drum, and seatrout seasons
These saltwater species are managed by region. Closed months differ, especially for snook. A statewide sentence cannot tell you whether a coast is open this week. Use the species page for the region you are fishing.
Legal gear
Hooks and barbless rules
Florida does not set a statewide barbless-hook rule for freshwater game fish. Game fish may be taken only with a pole and line or a rod and reel. There is no statewide limit on the number of rods. Some waters add circle hooks, including Fellsmere when natural bait longer than 3 inches is used. Saltwater species such as reef fish have their own hook rules in the saltwater regulations, including required circle hooks in some Gulf and Atlantic reef fisheries. Check the species page before using bait offshore.
Rods per angler
Freshwater game fish: pole and line or rod and reel, with no statewide cap on the number of rods. A free-floating, unattached device may not be used. Bush hooks, setlines, and trotlines are not legal ways to take game fish. Trotlines for other species are limited to 25 hooks total and only in waters where the Wildlife Code allows them.
Nets
Game fish may be possessed with cast nets of 1-inch stretched mesh or less, minnow dip nets no more than 4 feet in diameter, minnow seines no more than 20 feet long and 4 feet deep with stretched mesh of 1 inch or less, and minnow traps no more than 24 inches long and 12 inches in diameter with a funnel of 1 inch or less. Other gear that cannot legally take game fish may not be possessed together with game fish. Cast-net use for nongame fish is regional, and cast nets are prohibited in the waters adjoining Saddle Creek Fish Management Area. Saltwater nets follow the saltwater gear rules and the Florida net-limitation rules.
Snagging
Freshwater game fish have to be taken on a pole and line or a rod and reel. Snagging is not a legal method for those species. A fish taken on illegal gear cannot be kept, and game fish may not be possessed with illegal gear except the minnow gears listed above.
Spearing and bow
Spear guns, firearms, explosives, electricity, poison, and other chemicals may not be used to take freshwater fish. Taking fish by underwater swimming or diving is prohibited. Bowfishing is a nongame method and is regional: the freshwater booklet allows a bow and a light at night for nongame fish, with extra local rules, including night bowfishing tournaments in the Northwest Region. Game fish are not a bow fishery. Alligator gar require a scientific collector’s permit and may not be kept otherwise.
Bait and live transport
Black bass, peacock bass, and any part of those fish may not be used as bait. Live goldfish and carp may not be used as bait. No live nonnative fish, except variable platys and fathead minnows, may be transported to or between waters for use as bait. Whole pickerel or panfish, or parts of them, may be used as bait for sport fishing by the angler who caught them, and only on rod and reel or pole and line, not on a trotline or bush hook. Panfish under 4 inches from a licensed aquaculture facility may be purchased and used as bait. Licensed anglers may transport two days’ bag limit of legally harvested freshwater game fish out of the state. Selling freshwater game fish, or transporting more than that, requires a specific permit. Conditional and prohibited nonnative species may not be possessed.
Bag and size limits
These are the statewide or default limits. A named lake, river, or marine area can replace every figure below.
Black bass
Five a day in combination of Florida bass, largemouth bass, Suwannee bass, spotted bass, Choctaw bass, and shoal bass, and only one of the five may be 16 inches or longer. Florida bass and largemouth bass have no statewide minimum. Suwannee, shoal, spotted, and Choctaw bass may not be kept under 12 inches. Shoal bass must be released immediately on the Chipola River and its tributaries. Suwannee bass must be released immediately on the Wakulla River from the headsprings to the St. Marks River. Fish management areas and some rivers replace this rule, including immediate-release bass waters.
Panfish and crappie
Panfish: 50 a day in combination of bluegill, redear sunfish, flier, longear sunfish, mud sunfish, shadow bass, spotted sunfish, warmouth, and redbreast sunfish. Crappie: 25 a day. Some waters add a crappie length limit, including Lake Talquin, where crappie under 10 inches must be released.
Striped, white, and sunshine bass
Twenty a day in combination, of which only 6 may be 24 inches or longer. In the Suwannee River, waters north and west of it, and Suwannee tributaries, the striped bass bag is 3 and each must be at least 18 inches, inside the 20-fish combined bag. In the lower Ochlockonee River below Jackson Bluff Dam, the striped bass bag is 3 and only one may be 24 inches or longer, with no minimum. Lake Seminole and the St. Marys River have their own combined limits.
Peacock bass, shad, and eels
Butterfly peacock bass: 2 a day, and only one may be 17 inches or longer. Alabama shad, American shad, hickory shad, and blueback herring: 10 a day in combination, and only with hook-and-line gear. American eels: 25 a day, and each must be at least 9 inches. Eels purchased from a licensed dealer for bait may be possessed over that bag.
Possession and protected fish
No person may possess more than two days’ bag limit of freshwater game fish. Each angler is responsible for their own bag. Black bass, striped bass, white bass and their hybrids, peacock bass, and, where a length or slot limit applies, crappie and panfish must stay intact until the angler is done fishing for the day. Atlantic, Gulf, and shortnose sturgeon are protected. Any sturgeon must be released alive immediately. Grass carp and alligator gar may not be possessed without a permit and must be released immediately.
Saltwater
Saltwater fishing needs a saltwater license unless an exemption or a license-free saltwater day applies. A snook permit is required to take snook, and a spiny lobster permit is required to take lobster, except on license-free saltwater days. Gulf and Atlantic reef fish are managed separately, and some fisheries also need the free State Reef Fish Angler designation.
- Snook: one fish per person per day. The slot is not less than 28 inches and not more than 33 inches total length in the regions published that way, and not less than 28 or more than 32 inches in the Southeast and Indian River Lagoon regions. Seasons are regional and include closures. On a for-hire trip, captain and crew may not keep a snook bag limit.
- Red drum: one fish per person per day, not less than 18 inches and not more than 27 inches total length. The vessel limit is either 2 or 4 fish depending on the region. The region pages checked for this summary list the fishery as open year-round. Confirm the vessel limit for that region.
- Spotted seatrout bags and slots are regional. The species page lists three fish a day in several regions, five in the Big Bend, and two in at least one region. Do not assume a three-fish bag until you have opened the region.
- Atlantic recreational red snapper, under the 2026 state season, is open October 9–22, 2026. Private anglers need a saltwater license unless exempt and the free State Reef Fish Angler designation. The bag is one red snapper per person per day with no minimum size, inside a 10-fish snapper-grouper aggregate on declared red snapper trips. For-hire captain and crew may not keep a red snapper. Other fish in the aggregate still follow their own seasons and size limits. Gulf red snapper is a separate season.