North Florida fishermen who have been waiting all month to catch the state's most popular sportfish must wait no longer. Spotted sea trout season reopened on March 1.
 
Sea trout, one of the most widely dispersed gamefish in the state, are easy to catch on a spinning rod. These terrors of the grass flats will hit everything from topwater plugs to live shrimp.

The harvest of spotted sea trout was prohibited in February in Atlantic Ocean waters north of the Flagler-Volusia county line to the Florida-Georgia border and in Gulf of Mexico waters north of a line running due west from the westernmost point of Fred Howard Park Causeway, which is about 1.17 miles south of the Pinellas-Pasco county line, to the Florida-Alabama border.  The one-month closure helps keep the trout population healthy.

The maximum daily bag limit for spotted sea trout in the reopened waters is five fish per person.  In waters south of these boundaries, the daily limit is four fish per person. The statewide slot limit for spotted sea trout is 15-20 inches total length, but anglers may keep one spotted sea trout larger than 20 inches as part of the daily bag limit.