December Fishing in Freeport: Winter Inshore and the Flounder Reopen
December fishing in Freeport settles into a reliable winter inshore pattern. Redfish and speckled trout hold in deeper bay channels, sheepshead return to the jetties, and the flounder season reopens December 15 after the fall closure. The bay produces steadily all month for patient anglers.
December marks the shift into the winter pattern. As water temperatures fall, redfish and speckled trout move off the open flats and into the deeper, warmer channels of the bays and the Intracoastal. Slow-worked soft plastics and suspending baits fished low and deliberate are the cold-water answer; the warmest part of the afternoon usually triggers the best bite.
The flounder season reopens mid-month. Flounder harvest resumes December 15, after the November 1 to December 14 closure, so the back half of December reopens the flatfish, though many will have migrated out to the Gulf by then. Sheepshead also begin gathering on the jetties and pilings, building toward their January and February peak.
Offshore is essentially shut down for the winter, with only the rare calm window between fronts. December is a bay-and-jetty month, and a steady, reliable one for anglers willing to slow down and fish the warm afternoons. Check your limits in the TPWD fishing regulations and plan a trip from our charter guide.
December mornings in Freeport were fishable about 40% of mornings (good outright 12% of the time, across 154 graded mornings), per our 2021–2025 conditions archive.