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Sneak Up On Snook

There’s no shortage of the species as the season is set to reopen Monday.

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By FRANK SARGEANT | The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 29, 2008

It has been a long, tiring summer for those who have a taste for the tasty white fillets of Centropomus undecimalis, the common snook. The season has been closed on the west coast since May 1 to protect spawners, but it reopens Monday and continues through November.

Snook populations appear to be in excellent shape this fall, thanks to years of extremely tight harvest regulations. According to biologists with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, prior to 1980 about 90 percent of the annual snook kill took place during the spawning season, and tens of thousands of breeder-sized fish were reduced to fish sandwiches.

These days, with a legal slot size spanning only 5 inches on our coast and 4 inches on the east coast, most snook are protected from harvest most of their lives. The rules appear to be producing not only more small snook, but also a lot more very large snook.

A decade ago, it was big news in the angling community when anyone caught a 40-inch snook. These days, it's a common occurrence among skilled anglers, and fish approaching 4 feet long are caught on occasion.

However, a snook is still a snook, and catching one remains a challenge for less seasoned anglers.
There are some basic keys.

First — and this is the same no matter what species you are after — go where the fish are. For snook in September, that's likely to be around the major passes from Anclote Key southward throughout Everglades National Park, as the fish wind up their spawn. Spawned-out fish also will cruise the beaches for several weeks after the spawn, often swimming within a few feet of the sand, where they can easily be seen by anglers walking the shore.

In the passes, aggregations of fish often occur at the first structure break. A jetty, sandbar, pier, bridge piling or anything that will reduce the current is likely to hold a stack of snook.

The second key to snooking success is to be there when the fish are feeding. Snook are notorious for being seen but not caught. They might feed actively for only 30 minutes during a tide, and the bite often comes on the maximum flow at a given spot, so it pays to move with the current, hitting an assortment of spots as the strong flow passes them.

Having the right bait or lure is another key. Without question, the scaled sardine is now the magic bait for linesiders. With a well of live sardines, including plenty to be used as live chum, almost anybody can find and catch snook. It's simply a matter of pitching a few handfuls over the side in likely locations and letting the fish announce their presence as they explode on the wobbling baits.

Sardines are typically nose-hooked on a 1/0 short-shank live bait hook, with 18 inches of 25-pound-test monofilament leader. Most anglers use medium spinning gear and 10- to 15-pound-test microfiber line.

Among artificials, the DOA Shrimp, MirrOdine, Tsunami 4-inch split-tail swimbait and an assortment of topwaters do the job. All are best when tossed uptide and worked back with the flow.

Around Tampa Bay, some of the prime locations include potholes and cuts around Weedon Island, Double Branch Creek and Rocky Creek north of Courtney Campbell Parkway, the run-outs along the South Shore between Ruskin and Port Manatee, Bishop Harbor, Miguel Bay and the mouth of the Manatee River. Passes at the north and south ends of Anclote Key are good, as is Clearwater Pass and John's Pass. Docks along the Intracoastal Waterway from Bradenton Beach southward through Little Sarasota Bay are often productive.

At Charlotte Harbor, favorite areas include entry channels to Bull Bay and Turtle Bay, plus the many potholes and cuts between Pine Island and Don Pedro. "Snook Alley," between Englewood and Little Gasparilla Island, is a famed snook fishery as well. And for big snook, you can't do better than fishing a live pinfish deep in Captiva or Redfish passes on outgoing full- and new-moon tides. Day or night, it's a strategy hard to beat for a photo fish.

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