March Fishing in Freeport: The Cobia Run Begins

March is when cobia arrive in numbers. As nearshore water climbs through the 60s, these hard-fighting brown fish (also called ling) stage around the Freeport jetties, buoys, and the nearshore platforms, often cruising right at the surface where sight-casters can throw a bucktail jig or live eel ahead of them. The run builds through March and peaks in April and May, making this the start of the most exciting nearshore window of the year.

Inshore, the warming trend pushes redfish and speckled trout out of their winter channels and onto the flats and shorelines to feed. Trout fishing in particular picks up sharply as the spawn approaches; topwaters at dawn over grass flats start to produce. This is a transitional month, so be ready to fish deep on a cold morning and shallow on a warm afternoon.

Spring also kicks off on the jetty rocks: sheepshead stack up to spawn and are the most dependable early-season catch on a small hook with a fiddler crab or live shrimp. Note that April can be fickle too; late cold fronts and north winds blow out water clarity and slow the jetty bite until the water greens back up.

March weather is fickle, with late cold fronts still rolling through, so offshore blue-water trips remain hit-or-miss and weather-dependent. The smart play is nearshore: chase cobia and kingfish scouts on the calm days. A local charter captain will know exactly which platforms are holding fish that week.