Southwest Florida Forecast
March 05, 2026
By Capt. Greg Stamper
Capt. Greg Stamper of Snook Stamp Charters talks fishing from Sarasota to Bonita Beach, including Siesta Key, Englewood, Boca Grande, Port Charlotte, Punta Gorda, Pine Island, Cape Coral, Captiva, Sanibel and Fort Myers. Contact Info : Capt. Greg Stamper; Snook Stamp Charters, Bonita Springs; 239-313-1764; www.snookstampcharters.com March 5-8, 2026 The bite is getting good, and the bait has come back. We finally had an entire week of warm weather. Although we have had some strong winds on a few days, mucking up the water fishing has been good most days. The beginning of spring weather has our back bays hopping, our nearshore waters pumping, and the offshore rocking.
There was a lot of small redfish caught throughout the bay this week. We got a few big ones here and there, but with so many 17–20-inch fish around it was hard to catch anything else. Even in areas that had dirty water we were able to find “Rat Reds” which is a good sign of things to come. A few snook said hello this week as water temperatures reached the low 70s’. Trout that were plentiful throughout the northern part of the region before, have moved into the southern parts. A small permit, mangrove snappers, sheepshead, and black drum were this week’s bycatch.
The nearshore fishing on the local rock piles continues to be a sheepshead bonanza. These rock piles are often public numbers and are easy for anglers to find. Fish these areas using a simple shrimp tipped jig dropped on the bottom. It usually does not take long for the tapping to begin. If you’re lucky you will hook a few sheepsheads up to 7-pounds and catch mangrove snappers, grunts, small groupers, and the occasional mackerel or jack as the jig falls.
The offshore fishing was great on the days when anglers could get out. The winds did pick up to 10-15 mph for a few days. Although this is not brutal conditions, it can make things uncomfortable. On the good days though, running out some 40 miles plus is not a problem. The red grouper bite was good this week, starting around 90 feet. Those that fished out further had plenty of action with other bottom fishlike porgies, snappers, kingfish, and even a few sailfish. This coming week looks like weather will be great so look forward to this trend continuing.
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Tight lines, Capt. Greg Stamper
Bonita Springs, Fl
239-313-1764
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Previous reports Feb. 26-March 1, 2026 FS staff
Stay tuned to the latest report for Capt. Greg Stamper , snookstampcharters.com available below. Southwest Florida will feature planty of topwater fishing for spotted seatrout, redfish, snook, ladyfish and jacks in the Pine Island area and near the passes. Freshwater fishing will also be pretty good as this is the time when bass are on the spawn. Toss lipless crank baits or spinnerbaits to get reaction strikes.
NWS Marine weather forecast for the weekend:
Friday: South winds 5 to 10 knots. Seas around 2 feet. Bay and inland waters light chop. Patchy fog late this morning and early afternoon. A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms late.
Saturday: South winds around 5 knots. Seas 1 foot or less. Bay and inland waters smooth. A slight chance of showers. Patchy fog.
Sunday: Northeast winds 5 to 10 knots, becoming north in the afternoon. Seas 1 foot or less. Bay and inland waters light chop.
Previous reports Feb. 11-15, 2025 Things warmed up considerably this week, and fish began responding. Unlike the last few weeks, we finally started seeing afternoon temperatures in the 70s. This warmed up the water temperatures from a chilly 54-degrees at the beginning of the week to almost 70 in some areas. Overall, the effects of an almost lethal cool off have been acceptable in Southwest Florida and most of the fish kills have seemingly been on the freshwater side of things. Fish have been caught this week, and the weather has been good.
Those that fished early in the week in the shallow water areas did have to deal with the coolest of the waters and the muddiest. It was not easy during this time, but we did manage a few sheepshead, snappers, black drum, and an occasional stingray around the deeper docks and passes during the lower tides. Once the water had risen a bit, even though it was muddy we had some luck fishing along the mangrove shorelines for both redfish and sheepshead. Shrimp was the bait of choice for many, and not moving your bait worked out well as visibility was less than a few inches.
The offshore fishing started up again as we had a few calmer days after the last cold front. Anglers started in about 70 feet where they had lots of action on lane snappers, vermilions, mangrove snappers, and some red grouper. Once anglers got out past 12 miles the reports of clean water began. The best fishing reports came from the few boats that fished out past 130feet of depth. Wahoo, sailfish, kingfish, and tunas have been reported for those trolling or flat lining when bottom fishing. Snapper fishing was excellent out in these same areas and the size of the fish was much nicer than those that started in the 70-80-fott range.
The near-shore permit bite has slowed down considerably. Very few reports of great fishing came in from any of the nearshore guys. Most of the days were spent catching sheepshead, snappers, and a few grunts on the local wrecks and rock piles. We have had a very poor tripletail season so far and no one is even sure if the push of good fish is even going to come through our area at this point.
Tight lines, Capt. Greg Stamper
Snookstampcharters.com
Bonita Springs, Fl
239-313-1764
Previous reports Feb. 5-8, 2026 Well, another week of record lows has certainly made things a bit tough. Overall, the biggest concern with such cold weather has been the possibility of fish kills. Most anglers that were around 15 years ago remember our last massive kill off and we hope something similar does not occur. We started to see lots of starfish and creatures with shells around them washing onto our beaches earlier this week. Some of the small baitfish and fry have also perished already. Most of the fish when shocked by a big drop-in water temperature sink when they die. It will take some time before floating fish becomes prevalent. In the areas I fish we have not seen the repercussions of the twenty degree drop in water temperature as severe as those up further North. We did catch some fish this week, although it was not easy.
The back bays water levels were super low with a full-on Monday. This full moon combined with strong winds turns most of the inland areas that are normally shallow into bare land. The flats cool off in the 30-40-degree mornings and only acerbate the cool off. Once the water did make its way in, the high tides were still very low. Those of us that fished during this time had to fish along channel edges that looked more like canals, docks, and rivers. We did mange some sheepshead, small redfish, mangrove snappers, whiting, and a few small jacks in these areas. Hopefully with warmup coming this following week we will make it through this very tough period of unseasonally cold weather we have been dealing with.
Tight lines, Capt. Greg Stamper Snookstampcharters.com
Bonita Springs, Fl
239-313-1764
Previous reports Jan. 26, 2026 Well, it was cold out this week. Temperatures at first light started off in the high thirties and forties for most of the mornings. The first big cold front dropped temperatures some 30-degrees from the previous day on Monday.
Wind chills got as low as 27 on the feels like temperatures and that’s not something Florida natives are used to. This drastic change shut the fishing down as water temperatures fell almost 20 degrees overnight. Combine 15 to 20 mph winds into the equation, as well as super low winter tides and not much was going on.
Fred Scherger caught a couple tripletail tossing live shrimp around stone crab pots in Dec. 2025 near Venice. We did give it a go once during the warmest part of the day on Wednesday. There was not much going on but we did manage to catch some snappers, small sheepshead, a black drum, and of course a few catfish using shrimp. If you fish during these cold days small jigs tipped with shrimp seem to be the best bet. The fish were not big, and we did have to dead stick the jigs until something finally picked them up. Most of the fish were small, but we got at least a few. It looks like we will be receiving another blast of arctic air this weekend. This second shot of cold weather could hurt our fish population.
Terri Johnson of Winter Park caught this 11-pound bass (a personal best!) while fishing with a watermelon and red flake Culprit 7.5 inch worm in Sebring Jan. 1, 2025. Probably the best chance for this next week will be to find areas that have dark bottoms. Areas that are generally darker will warm up a bit quicker and a few degrees of temperature change may give you a chance. Fishing areas that are deeper or have some kind of warm water runoff will also be a good place to start. Remember this, the fish have just been shocked by this massive cool off and will not be moving around much. Fish that are less active tend not to chase things around much. When using anything that is moving through the water column go as slow as you can. Downsizing baits and using smaller lures will also be more productive.
Tight lines, Capt. Greg Stamper Bonita Springs, Fl
239-313-1764
www.snookstampcharters.com
Previous reports Jan. 23-26, 2026 Well Southwest Florida got a dose of cold weather this week. Undoubtably this will be some of the coldest air of the year. Combine a water temperature drop of over 20 degrees inshore along with the strong winds that lasted several days, and it was not easy. Most of the mornings were brutal as temperatures started off in the high 30’s and low 40’s. To top it off when the winds shifted from the east at 15-20 mph all the water that was in the bays got pushed out.
The one or two days that people got out were tough. Most of the good action occurred where the Gulf of America was nearby. Areas just inside Redfish Pass, Blind pass, and Captiva pass that got some good pushes of water stayed decent. On the lowest of tides redfish, trout, ladyfish, and jack crevalle’s would cruise just off the edges of the exposed areas. Once some water came in and the flats began to flood those same fish moved onto those same flats. Other than that, a few anglers had some luck fishing the docks and structures around the passes for sheepshead, snapper, and some black drum.
There were a few guides that had a few days to get into the nearshore waters. Those that had crabs of the pass, small blue, and swimmer variety caught a few permit with them. Using shrimp on jigs in around the rockpiles and reef areas produced snappers, sheepshead, cobia, and some trout. As a side note, those same guides that go out during the evening outgoing tides reported the shrimp are getting bigger and there has been some manta shrimp moving out with the tides.
Tight Lines,
Capt. Greg Stamper, 239-313-1764, Bonita Springs Snookstampcharters.com Previous reports Jan. 15-19, 2026 This massive push of cold air arriving today should finish off what good fishing we had for about a week. This cold front moving in will drop air temperatures into the low forties, possible high thirties, and then low fifties for the upcoming week. High temperatures are not expected to be much more than seventy at their peaks during this same timeframe. Unfortunately, this will drop water temperatures significantly and shock our fish for a while. This coming week may be a good opportunity to fix some of the things that need fixing and clean up some of the things that need cleaning.
These backwater creeks and mosquito ditches along Southwest Florida hold numerous juvenile tarpon. The fishing before this front arrived was good. We caught snook, redfish, and even a few tarpon. There has been plenty of bait along our bridges to cast net, making for easy starts to the mornings. Using artificial lures like twitch baits and creature baits we caught just as many when using bait, maybe even more. Trout fishing has been great for those fishing in Pine Island. Those grass flats up along Sanibel and Captiva are some of the best around here, and thus they are also the best for trout. Most of the big number days for trout came from these areas.
The nearshore bite was great all week for permit, cobia, snappers, snook, and sheepshead. The cold front coming through will greatly affect this bite as well and only time will tell how things pan out. The nearshore crab pots for tripletail fishing are nice and gummed up now. However, one day I ran trap lines for an hour, we saw only three small fish.
Tight lines, Capt. Greg Stamper 239-313-1764, Bonita Springs FL SnookStampCharters.com
Previous reports Dec. 12-14 Report Our fish are getting used to this cold for a day or two, nice for a few days trend. Other than the two days when the water temperatures dropped, it’s been good. There have been a lot of fish in the deeper channels during the cool-offs, and they seem to spread back out as the water warms up. We had a bit of reprieve from the extremely low tides occurring in the mornings. Winter super lows hit their bottoms around noon all week, so the backwater bays were not empty at first light. This gave early risers some moving water to work with and catch fish.
Most of the backwater action consisted of redfish, jacks and snook during the warmest days. Our water was as warm as 76 in the beginning of the week and eventually hit a low of 66. Some areas stayed a bit warmer as I’m sure there were some spots that got even colder. During the coldest of days, we fished the local passes, docks and deep troughs for sheepshead, snappers and black drums. For anglers that are using live bait, it’s mostly either whitebait or shrimp right now. During the winter the shrimp that you buy in the bait shops is bigger. So, using a whole live shrimp tossed along mangrove shorelines is a lot easier to both throw and see these days.
Photo courtesy of Capt. Greg Stamper The local reefs and wrecks continue to hold good numbers of cobia. Most of the cobia range in the 15-35-pound class. There are some bigger cobias around, but honestly the smaller they are the better they taste. These same reefs and rock piles also hold sheepshead and black drums at this time of the year. The sheepshead is starting to get bigger now and catching a bunch is common. Shrimp, barnacles and small crabs work best for these bait stealers, and a smaller hook works better. Other options in these areas like random kingfish and mackerels are also in play.
The few chances anglers could get offshore red grouper was easy pickings. The fact that it has been windy so often means there has been very little pressure on the fish. If you’re the first boat to be anywhere near them in over a week then your chances of getting hooked up are very good. Pin fish, squid, and frozen threadfin herring worked well. Snapper fishing apparently has not been as good as expected. This seems a bit strange to hear from multiple anglers, but fish do move around. I would expect that to change soon, as snapper is a very common target that is fished often.
Capt. Greg Stamper www.snookstampcharters.com
PREVIOUS REPORTS Dec. 5-7 Report Another week of going through the up and downs of cold fronts has passed. The battle through water temperatures cooling off them warming back up has begun. Add super low tides to the equation and it can make for some tough days. Even with diversity anglers still caught fish, and some good ones too.
The nearshore fishing on the days when the water temperature was not dropping was good. There are a lot of cobias moving around the area. Any structure that has decent relief will hold cobia near it this time of the year. Often these fish will swim up to the boat curious about what is going down. Both surface fish have been easy picking when anglers have thrown a live pilchard or threadfin herring in front of them or even a large shrimp. Fishing around these same reefs and wrecks also produces a chance at sheepshead, trout, and mackerel.
Photo courtesy of Capt. Greg Stamper The back bay fishing in Pine Island sound for trout has been good. Most of the trout are on the grass flats from Captiva north. You can catch good numbers of trout with a simple popping cork that has either live bait or plastic artificial under it easily now. Trout in the southern part of the region has been hit or miss along the beaches and passes. Red fishing was decent on the days when we had water. The super low negative tides make fishing in some of the areas impossible. It’s hard to catch fish when there is no water to fish in, and with low tides one foot plus lower than a normal low, that’s what we had. During the lowest of tides, the only options we had were to fish along the channels and docks, where we caught whiting, ladyfish, jacks, and some black drums.
Capt. Greg Stamper www.snookstampcharters.com
