The Heart of Dixie Coast
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August 2026
By Jimmy Jacobs
Any fly angler that has hooked a snook likely knows the feeling. It is a rush that just may then turn into an addiction. These fish often take to the air, leaping out to the water in twisting displays. Or the hook up may result in a powerful run, especially with the bigger members of the species. Either way, the battle will be tough and exciting.
Another reason that targeting snook on the fly can be addictive revolves around the fish’s habits. While many saltwater species are constantly on the move, making them difficult to pattern, snook usually act more like a largemouth bass in fresh water. They find a good ambush site and use it to waylay passing forage. Unless something spooks them into moving, that’s likely where you will find them.
Is a catch like this likely to become common in Alabama? Photo courtesy of Claude Preston.
All of which is to point out that once you catch one of these line-sided fish, you will want to replicate the adventure.
The down side is the fact that you have to head far to the south to find snook. Their traditional range would best be described as the south Florida coast from New Smyrna Beach on the Atlantic, around to Tampa on the west coast. Also, the species can be found along the deep south Texas coast down around Brownsville.
The need for that long distance travel may be changing. Would you believe these fish are showing up along the Alabama coast. It apparently is happening, and not as an extremely rare occurrence.
According to the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources more and more anglers are discovering the fish they have hooked in Cotton State waters turns out to be a snook!
That fact caught the attention of Dr. Charles Martin of the University of South Alabama and the Dauphin Island Sea Lab. After looking into the phenomenon, he found that anglers had reported recently catching more than 150 snook in Alabama. That is just the number reported, so it’s suspected even more may have been caught.
Such catches have even led Alabama’s Marine Resources Division to establish regulations for the species. Only one fish per day may be harvested with a minimum size limit of 28 inches. Also, they have recognized a state record for snook for a 13.7-pound fish taken by Adam Rhodes of Elberta in February of 2026.
So how is this possible? One answer could be climate change – simply put water temperatures are going up. We will stay out of the politics of why that may be happening, but since snook don’t tolerate water temperatures below 50 degrees, warming would be necessary for them to move into Alabama.
On the other hand, it could end up just being a short-term effect. Dr. Martin pointed out that the Alabama coast has had a string of two to three winters in a row that were unseasonably warm.
Still, the Gulf Coast does endure some freezing temperatures more often than South Florida. However, Dr. Martin also suggested the possibility that some deeper holes in Bama’s coast rivers may stratify during cold snaps. The cold water on the surface, keeping the warmer water beneath it could offer a thermal refuge for snook at such times.
In fact, after the Alabama coast got 8 to 10 inches of snow during a storm in January of 2025, DCNR biologists collected snook during a shocking survey on Weeks Bay the next month. Weeks Bay connects to the east side of Mobile Bay between Barnwell and Foley.
Perdido Bay has been the site of many of these snook encounters. Photo by Jimmy Jacobs.
The fact that snook also can tolerate fresh water could play a part, since they could move even farther up rivers looking for such conditions. Snook have been found as far inland as Lake Okeechobee in Florida and there have even been rare reports of them near the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia.
The reported catches of snook have been from all along the Alabama Coast, from places like the Fowl River on the west side of Mobile Bay to the Fish River that feeds Weeks Bay. However, the largest number of catches have taken place in the Perdido Bay region of southern Baldwin County.
At this point, it is probably impractical to head to the Alabama coast to specifically target snook on the fly. But if they become even more common, who knows? For the time being we can expect more anglers to be surprised when they reel in one of the linesides.
In the meantime, Dr. Martin is asking anglers that catch a snook in Alabama to report them to hookedasnook@gmail.com. The information they would like have is the date of the catch, general location, estimated size and, if possible, a photo.
