Excerpts from CATCH FISH NOW! on Florida's West Coast



Mr. Snook
The snook is long-bodied but thick through the middle, with a depressed upper snout and a protruding lower jaw.  The color is variable according to habitat, but is generally brownish or brown-gold on the back shading to a lighter color on the belly.  It has a pronounced black lateral stripe that extends to the tail.  West Coast snook generally follow a standard annual pattern of movement.  In the winter, they'll be up in area rivers and creeks and in deeper canals.  As the water warms in the spring, they begin to move toward passes into the Gulf.  After summer spawning in and around the passes, they'll once again begin a migration inland toward their wintering grounds.  Snook are delicious eating!  The Florida record is upwards of 44 pounds.
Proven Tactics:
  • Snook are world-class gamefish, with the physical attributes, predatory nature, and insatiable appetite necessary to turn you every which way but loose. 
  • Snook will eat just about anything you throw at them - live and dead natural baits and a vast array of artificials all find willing fish. 
  • Access to the fish - By trolling, drifting, or anchored; wading the flats; from the shore; from bridges, docks, seawalls, jetties, and piers; and from the beach in the surf. 
  • Live Bait - pinfish, mullet, jumbo shrimp, croaker, greenbacks, ballyhoo, grunts, sand perch, and menhaden. 
  • Cut Bait - ladyfish, mullet, and menhaden are probably the most popular.  Whatever you use, it must be fresh.  Use it whole but, if you cut off the tail, it will cast better and not spin in the current. 
  • Generic Rigs - Use a slip rig with about four feet of 80 pound test momo, a 4/0 hook, and an egg sinker for cut bait.  For live bait, an 18 inch, 30 pound test leader and a 4/0 hook is a good place to start.  Use the same test leader when fishing artificials. 
 
Your Winning Edge...
If you're surf fishing, try 400-500 yards on either side of a pass or inlet.  Also be sure to work around any bars that extend out in the Gulf, rock groins along the beach, or other types of shore/near-shore structure.  Enhance your probability of success by chumming with live bait. 
An interesting way to hook a mullet and other live bait is just under the chin about due south of his gill plates.  Hooked this way, your bait will swim naturally until you pull on the line.  Your pull will flip the bait over and cause him to "flutter" toward the bottom - - and get eaten! 
Don't overlook the warm water discharge canals at most West Coast power plants.  They're usually productive for winter snook action. 
You've got to have good curent for good snook fishing.  Three days before and after a full or new moon is good.  An unstable (moving) barometer is great, too. 
When night fishing shadow lines along a bridge or pier, cast just outside the lights' halo.  Snook ambush food from the shadows. 
If you're going to fish fresh dead mullet, crush his head before you toss him in.  He'll be more aromatic. 
Surf fishing with lures is usually most productive at night or other periods of low light levels.  Wade out just a bit and make long casts parallel to the beach. 
Try night fishing off a bridge.  Use a lead headjig tipped with a liveshrimp hooked up through the head.  Throw up current and bounce it slowly toward you. 
Here's a suggestion on trolling mangrove channels.  Pull two lines with red and white or black and silver Rebel, Rapala, or Bomber minnows on them.  The lures, which should be medium-lipped models, should be dropped back 40-50 feet.  About four knots would be a good speed to get your lures in the 4-6 foot depth range. 
If you're a freshwater bass fisherman, take your bass tackle snook fishing - almost all of the artificial lures bass eat (deep and shallow diving plugs) will produce plenty of snook! 
I recently learned that the Florida Guides Association had adopted a no-kill policy for any snook over 34 inches.  That was done to protect genetically superior breeders which, most believe, have suffered a decline in their numbers.  That's an absolutely outstanding policy - - that I intend to follow.  Hope you will too!

 


Click here to return