Fishing forecast for Jacksonville, FL

Jacksonville is built around the lower St. Johns, one of the few rivers in the United States that flows north. Within the city the river grades from full-strength seawater at the Mayport jetties to brackish water near downtown and fresh water near the Buckman Bridge, which is why redfish and largemouth bass share this page. How far the salt reaches up the river changes with the tide, the wind and the rain.

Best fishing times in Jacksonville this week

Majors run an hour either side of the moon crossing the meridian over Jacksonville, FL; minors, half an hour either side of moonrise and moonset. Where those widths come from: best fishing times and how we compute these times.

When these windows are not the right tool

Solunar theory is John Alden Knight's 1926 prediction; the ±60 and ±30 minute widths are convention, not calculation. The times are computed astronomy, the claim that fish feed inside them is not. The day rating follows moon phase — identical nationwide, so every city shows it the same. A moving front beats the moon: apps that read pressure.

Where to fish in Jacksonville

This page is built around St. Johns River, with Atlantic in reach — both salt and fresh water, about 10 minutes from the middle of Jacksonville.

The St. Johns drops less than 30 feet over its 310-mile run north, about an inch per mile in the St. Johns River Water Management District's figure. On a river that flat the tide reaches a long way: the district says tides can reverse the flow as far south as Lake Monroe, 161 miles upstream.

FWC puts red drum spawning from about August through December in passes, inlets and lagoon estuaries around the state, and says redfish stay inshore until they reach roughly 30 inches, at about four years, before joining the nearshore population. The inlet at the mouth of the St. Johns is that kind of spawning water.

In Census figures Jacksonville covers 747 square miles of land and 127 square miles of water. By total area that makes it the largest city in the contiguous United States, though the unified government of Greeley County, Kansas, has more land. The St. Johns runs through the middle of it.

The nearest grids we publish are Orlando, FL (201 km, Lake Tohopekaliga) and Tampa, FL (276 km, Tampa Bay). Different water, and different minutes.

What you can catch in Jacksonville

State listings put these 6 fish in the water around Jacksonville. Plan around the peak, not the open season.

The State of the River Report for the Lower St. Johns lists offshore water levels, the tide and moon phase, river flow, local and offshore winds, and the weather as the forces that move salinity in the river, and says it can vary considerably. That shifting salt is the line between the river's saltwater and freshwater fish.

FWC describes sheepshead as fish of coastal structure such as oyster bars and seawalls and of tidal creeks, moving nearshore in late winter and early spring to spawn inshore, typically in March and April. That makes late winter and early spring the sheepshead season on the lower St. Johns.

The State of the River Report puts average salinity at about 35 parts per thousand at the ocean, 10 to 18 near downtown Jacksonville and 0 to 5 near the Buckman Bridge, which it classes as fresh water. A saltwater fishery and a freshwater fishery sit on one river inside one city.

Tackle sits outside a forecast page: start with how to catch largemouth bass.

Water temperature and season in Jacksonville

Air here swings 28.3 °F across the year, from 54.2 °F in January to 82.5 °F in July. Water is measured separately, and it is not the same number: against these air normals the gauge reads 3.6 to 7.5 °F warmer, every month of the year.

Monthly climate for Jacksonville, FL. The air line is the NOAA NCEI climate normal for 1991–2020 — the thirty-year average of a calendar month, not the weather of any one year — measured at JACKSONVILLE, FL US (USW00013889), 17.6 km from the middle of town, with 28–29 of the thirty years behind each month. The water line is neither a normal nor the air: hourly readings at NOAA gauge Jacksonville University (8720245), 5.4 km out, averaged by calendar month over 2015–2025 — 8–10 complete years per month. It is the surface at the gauge, not the water on any particular spot, and it lags the air by weeks, so the two lines are not interchangeable. Read into this site on 2026-09-14.

The water column comes from the Jacksonville University gauge on the St. Johns itself, and the river averages warmer than the air in every month of the year — most of all in November, by about seven and a half degrees. January is the unsettled month: its warmest year in the record averaged 62.9 degrees and its coldest 52.5. June through September each bring more than three times November's rain, the water that pushes the salt line downriver.

Sunrise, sunset and daylight in Jacksonville

The moon window moves daily; the sun does not. Plan a season against this block.

The longest day of 2026 is June 21, 14h 06m; the shortest, December 21, 10h 11m. The meridian passing drifts about 50 minutes later daily: a dawn window this week is an afternoon window in a fortnight.

The jetties at Mayport mark the mouth of the St. Johns, and every tide into or out of the river passes between them. NOAA's Mayport gauge near the mouth records a mean tide range of 4.53 feet and a great diurnal range of 4.96 feet.

FWC says Florida gar use an air bladder to breathe air in low-oxygen water. The agency gives their range as the Ochlockonee River and the waters east and south of it through peninsular Florida, where they live in streams, canals and lakes over mud or sand bottoms near underwater vegetation, and lists the state record at 9.44 pounds.

Most of the fresh water reaching the lower St. Johns falls as rain from June through October, the State of the River Report says, with springs and groundwater supplying the rest. Salinity climbs during droughts and heavy rain dilutes it, so the brackish reach of the river is not fixed from season to season.

License and seasons in Florida

Rules for Florida come from Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and the calculation behind the table is set out in how we compute these times.

Boat ramps and fishing access in Jacksonville

Public registries put 64 access points within reach of Jacksonville, 28 of them trailer ramps. The nearest is St Johns Marina (Downtown Jacksonville), about 0.7 mi out in a straight line.

64 access points within 25 km of Jacksonville, FL, from the agency registry and OpenStreetMap — the same records the table below lists. Each dot is a record its source publishes, not a place we have visited; click one for what that source says. The dashed ring is that 25 km circle, centred on the point every distance is measured from — click that centre for its coordinates, even when a cluster sits on it. Zoom in to split a cluster.