On the last two days of snook fishing season I had clients onboard that wanted to get on monster snook in the daytime. Of course the wind was not cooperating with 8-12 knots and 15-20 knot gusts. I picked up my clients at their water front hotel and made our way across open water to Anclote key. The Hewes Redfisher 18 handled the rough conditions well and we shut down on the north end of the key. There wasn't as much water on the flats as there should have been due to the winds out of the east. It was way too windy to pole so I used the wireless trolling motor form the poling platform. I eased us up onto a small, white sand flat adjacent to a deep cut between the key and a sandbar and staked us out. I figured that the big snook would come up from the depths of the cut onto the flat in search of bait. The way the current flow was moving, and the amount of bait on the flats, we were in the perfect place. We waited. Then we waited some more. There was a large tidal pool back into the key that I couldn't get us to but I could see the entrance to it. As we were all looking for snook we saw a monster blow out of the tidal pool and go into the cut about 150 feet in front of us. I rubbed my eyes to make sure that I wasn't seeing things. One of the guys turned around and said to me" I guess you weren't joking. I've never seen a snook that big." That snook was huge and moving fast. Now all we needed was for one of them to come up onto the flats. As fate would have it, shortly after we settled down, another monster snook popped up out of the cut and onto the flats about 100 feet in front of us. It was slowly working its' way toward us. I could hear a knocking sound and some mumbling. A good time for a prayer and try to control your excitement was called for. I told him to wait for it,.. wait, Cast Now! He laid the soft plastic about 3 feet in front of the oncoming snook. She saw it and moved away then turned and charged. She got about a foot away and turned away and dove into the cut. Both clients cast into the cut but nothing there. She was gone. After our heart beats returned to normal, here came 2 more huge snook. They both came up from the cut and were chasing bait. We cast into the bait school and WAM! Ten seconds later the 30 lb leader snapped on one hook up and the other turned away. That was about it for the morning but we got onto some incredibly huge monsters.
Using live bait would have made some difference, but not a lot. Besides they wanted to fish artificial and that's all I use. It is a much greater challenge to fool a fish especially a big seasoned snook like the ones we were on. The excite-0-meter pegged out with each fish and that's what it's all about.
Thanks for reading,
Capt. Pat
