- Depth
- 1-5.9 ft
- Access
- By boat or from shore
- Best months
- November to March
- Species
- Snook, Redfish (red drum), Spotted seatrout, Tarpon, Mangrove (gray) snapper, Sheepshead, Black drum
Phillippi Creek is the largest tributary of the whole Sarasota Bay system: about 57 square miles of watershed, around 7 miles of natural creek and more than 100 miles of ditches and canals, draining into Roberts Bay. Roberts Bay is a shallow bay of about 2.1 square miles behind Siesta Key that takes its Gulf water through Big Sarasota Pass. FWC names Phillippi Creek in its Sarasota Bay snook region. Mote Marine Laboratory has released hatchery snook into the creek to study stocking, including 320 tagged fish in 2016 and 1,440 juveniles in 2021, and tracks them with antennas in the creek. FWC's Roberts Bay Critical Wildlife Area, about 3 acres of spoil islands in the Intracoastal east of Siesta Key, is closed year-round for nesting and roosting birds.
How to fish it
This is classic winter snook water. FWC's snook researchers favor artificial lures in winter, fished slowly along deeper bends, docks and seawalls, and on the coldest, windy days suggest a bar or sandy bank on the northeast shore of canals and bayous in the upper bays. Sarasota County's Phillippi Estate Park has a kayak launch on the creek, and Pinecraft Park has a canoe launch farther up. From spring to fall, work the mangrove edges of Roberts Bay.