Guide
Fishing: what is open, and the limits
Checked September 28, 2026 against Texas Parks and Wildlife’s saltwater bag and length limits.
The Fishing tile says, for the fish most people go out for on this coast, whether you may keep one today and how many, in Texas Parks and Wildlife’s numbers. When the board cannot be sure, it says CHECK and links to the page to read, rather than guess.
One set of rules for the whole coast
TPWD’s saltwater limits are the same from Sabine Pass to the Rio Grande, in the bays and in the Gulf. They apply to fish caught in Texas waters, which run out to 9 nautical miles in the Gulf, and to fish caught farther out in federal waters and landed in Texas. So all three boards, and every town on them, read the same water. The tile calls it “the bays and the Gulf.”
| Water | Towns |
|---|---|
| The bays and the Gulf | South Padre Island, Port Isabel, Laguna Vista, Port Mansfield, Loyola Beach, Corpus Christi, North Beach, Port Aransas, Padre Island, Portland, Ingleside, Aransas Pass, Rockport, Fulton, Bayside, Port O'Connor, Seadrift, Port Lavaca, Magnolia Beach, Lolita, Palacios, Matagorda, Sargent, Freeport, Surfside Beach, Quintana, Galveston, Jamaica Beach, Crystal Beach, High Island, Texas City, San Leon, Kemah, Seabrook, La Porte, Baytown, Anahuac, Sabine Pass, Port Arthur |
A Texas fishing license with a saltwater endorsement is needed to land fish from state or federal water.
The fish on the tile
Red drum, spotted seatrout, flounder, black drum, sheepshead, red snapper, king mackerel, cobia and tarpon, and offshore, red snapper and greater amberjack in federal waters. Each row says open or closed today, the daily bag, and the size limits, and each links to that fish’s own TPWD page. Unless TPWD says otherwise, the possession limit is double the daily bag.
Flounder is the one that closes. From November 1 through December 14 no flounder may be kept, by any means. The rest of the year the bag is five, and you may hold only one day’s bag. The tile turns flounder to CLOSED at midnight on November 1 and back to OPEN on December 15.
Tarpon says catch and release. TPWD allows one a day, but only at 85 inches or longer, so almost every tarpon goes back.
Red drum and spotted seatrout have tags. Over the maximum length, one fish a license year may be kept on the tag that comes with the license, and one more on a bonus tag. The tile says so; the tag rules themselves are TPWD’s.
Red snapper and amberjack offshore
In Texas waters, out to 9 nautical miles, red snapper is open all year, and that is the tile’s “Red snapper, state waters” row. Farther out, in federal waters, private anglers have a separate season with its own limits, which TPWD opens and then closes when it judges the year’s catch has been taken. Greater amberjack in federal waters has a season too.
TPWD does not print those two seasons as dates in advance. It says where each stands in one line at the top of the fish’s page — for example, that the season “remains open” as of a given day, or that it will close on a given date — and rewrites that line as things change. The tile reads that line each time the board refreshes and gives the federal-waters rows their word from it, with the date TPWD wrote it:
- Open when TPWD’s line says open for this year. If it names a closing date, the row turns CLOSED at the start of that day. If TPWD has not said “open” again for a month, the row turns CHECK: a season that closes when the catch is taken is exactly the one where an old “open” is a ticket.
- Closed when TPWD’s line says closed.
- CHECK whenever the line is missing, is about another year, or says anything the board does not read for certain.
Why a fish says CHECK
Each row was written from TPWD’s page for that fish. The board reads those pages again every time it refreshes, and compares their limits with the text it was written from. If a page changes, that fish says CHECK until somebody has read the new page and updated the row. A CHECK is also shown when a page cannot be read, and when the board has no row for today — which happens on the first day of a new year until its rows are written.
TPWD’s limits run by license year, September 1 to August 31, and are printed that way at the top of each page.
What the tile does not cover
- Every other fish. TPWD lists many more saltwater species, from grouper and triggerfish to Spanish mackerel and sharks, each with its own page. Some of those are also governed by federal seasons offshore.
- Gear, places and licenses. Circle-hook rules for red snapper with natural bait, venting tools or descending devices for reef fish, closed areas, and license rules are on TPWD’s pages, not the tile.
- Oysters, clams and crabs. Whether a bay is open for oysters is the Department of State Health Services’ question and is on the shellfish tile.
Sources
- TPWD, saltwater bag and length limits — the index of every fish’s page
- TPWD, flounder — the November 1 to December 14 closure and the possession limit
- TPWD, snapper — the state-waters and federal-waters red snapper seasons, and circle hooks
- TPWD, amberjack — the federal-waters greater amberjack season line and the limits
- TPWD, drum and seatrout — the slot limits and the tags
- TPWD, tarpon — one a day at 85 inches; and every page’s note on state and federal waters, the saltwater endorsement and the possession limit