Stay Informed! - Join Our FREE Newsletter
Fishing
Dedication to the future of snook and our fisheries is a non-stop effort. Here are the latest happenings.
| February 25, 2010
photo credit: Norm Zeigler
Excerpt from Snook on a Fly
By Norm Zeigler
One of the favorite quarries of the old New England whalers was the right whale, so named because its physical and behavioral traits were ideally suited – “right” -- for their needs. For saltwater fly fishers, you could say the snook is the “right fish.”
Some fly anglers -- especially those who regard tarpon as mere flashy genetic giants -- consider snook the tropics’ and subtropics’ premier inshore game fish. They are extremely wary but aggressive feeders and fierce fighters. Sea trout are flashier to look at but weaker fighters. Redfish pack a wallop but lack snook’s spectacular aerialist antics. And, unlike tarpon, snook are delicious to eat.
| December 02, 2009
Three of Florida's best tell where and how to slam your way to a trio of local gamefish.
Snook are considered a bell weather species when it comes to inshore habitat. In short, if an inshore area is healthy enough to support juvenile snook, it should be healthy enough to sustain more than 200 other species of fish, marine animals, plants and sea grasses. Because of that, if you happen to fishing an area and see a snook or two, there’s a decent chance of catching one or more other species of gamefish. Included on that “bycatch” list are seatrout, redfish and tarpon. Catch three or more of those in one day and you’ve got yourself a Slam.
Each region of the state has its own definition of what a Slam is, the parameters being defined by the types of fish that generally inhabit that area. The East Coast Slam and the Everglades Slam, for example, both include snook, trout and redfish. Those three species are most available all year long along the East Coast and throughout Everglades National Park, though still difficult to catch in one day. The West Coast Slam, on the other hand, includes snook, redfish and tarpon. West Coast anglers who catch a seatrout, in addition to the three Slam species, can boast a Grand Slam.
The trick to all three Slams is finding the areas healthy enough to hold snook and then covering that area sufficiently with your baits. Snook are considered a bell weather species when it comes to inshore habitat. In short, if an inshore area is healthy enough to support juvenile snook, it should be healthy enough to sustain more than 200 other species of fish, marine animals, plants and sea grasses.
| November 22, 2009
Texas snook must fall within a tight slot in order to come home for dinner. Photo: Erich Schlegel
Night Time Right Time for South Texas Snook
and the South Texas snook fishery is growing!
Florida snook anglers have known for years what some Texas fishermen have discovered in the past decade: if you want to hang a big linesider, work the night shift.
Rick Roberts, executive director of the Florida-based Snook Foundation, says structure like pilings and bridges are among the wily robalo’s favorite haunts, and now is the time to go.
| November 02, 2009
the story behind the lure!
Mark Nichols might have followed the ancient path of Antonio Stradivari if Santa hadn’t given his sister a Creepy Crawlers Thing Maker for Christmas. Actually the fate of Nichols, creator and owner of DOA Lures, probably had been determined some time before a craftsman friend gave him a piece of 100-year-old European spruce and encouraged him to carve and polish it into a violin.
The father of this Texas son owned a bait-shrimp trawler, which he kept in Kemah. Every summer and many weekends during the 1960s a young Mark Nichols would visit his father’s canal home on Bolivar Peninsula. When he wasn’t a nighttime deckhand on the 30-foot trawler or helping a friend run crab traps, Nichols was putting around the bay in Dad’s johnboat, fishing. “I thought shrimping was pretty cool back then,” Nichols said. “Even if we had a bad night at least we had enough shrimp for dinner. And we always had bait.”
Nichols got to know shrimp intimately. But he was a lure angler early on. A family friend on Bolivar made lures in his garage. And Dad, who owned a 27-foot Higgins, showed his son how to catch fish with homemade baits. Mattel toy makers probably would have done well to market their Creepy Crawlers machine to wannabe lure makers. Surely Nichols was not the only budding angler who slid a hook into a Creepy Crawler to catch fish. Did you know that a five-pound bass will eat a plastic butterfly?
| October 12, 2009
Capt Doug Creek with Jordan Ingman and a big Charlotte Harbor redfish found under a dock in Punta Gorda.
One of the biggest dangers of fishing in any tournament is overconfidence. Knowing you can catch that one fish that will lead you to a win leads you to overlook that fish until it’s too late.
Capt. Doug Creek is a fishing guide specializing in the inshore waters from Tampa Bay to Charlotte Harbor and he knows all too well the danger of entering a tournament and putting one species on the back burner while he tries to upgrade another species.
When it comes to fishing Charlotte Harbor in the fall, Creek said the species that will most likely trip up most anglers is the trout.
| October 09, 2009
The traveling angler has a fighting chance with this tournament format a Catch Photo and Release with all the money going to support Capt Doug Hemmer of Dream Fish Charters who suffered a serious back injury. Tampa Bays finest turned out to help.
We didn’t have any trouble photographing and releasing Brett's first two fish. The trout bite was on with top water plugs, and he was on a small snook with white bait in plenty of time to find a decent red. We hoped to catch photo and release at least 60 inches of red, snook and trout. photo: Brett Fitzgerald
A couple of weeks ago we learned of an upcoming charity tournament in the Tampa Bay area, put together by Capt Chuck and Florida Inshore Anglers for the benefit of Doug Hemmer of Dream Fish Charters, a great guy who had seriously hurt his back and has lots of bills for medical attention. Several guides had made themselves available to take out teams of two for a donation to Capt Hemmer. We donated $600 in entries to fish the Florida Oktoberfest Inshore Slam Oct 23-25 in Punta Gorda from the Snook Foundation. I invited our SE Regional Director Brett Fitzgerald to fish and he accepted. We were randomly assigned Capt. Tyson Wallerstein of Largo.
| September 28, 2009
Grunt catching king Dave Decker, reports from a recent visit to Curry Hammock State Park
A Casual Angler tries out Kayak Fishing in the Keys
I'll admit it. Those Florida Keys call to my soul. This old Florida boy's spirit lives in Margaritaville. I revel in the beauty of those lovely pearls of the sea.
I always look forward to a fishing trip aboard one of the many day boats when I visit. But unfortunately, on this trip it was midweek and my fellow "born to fish, forced to work" fishermen were all busy being forced in great numbers. Since there weren't enough anglers to cover the expense, the party boat, much to my disappointment, didn't go out.
| September 25, 2009
Fall is in the air - and it's time to plan a camping trip. Don't
confuse island camping with pulling up to a Disney campsite in the
family SUV containing all the comforts of home - especially if you
arrive by kayak.
Camp out on the best mixed-bag fishing in Florida.
Hey Dad, you want a picture of this one? And Jen got a snook.”Third time I’d heard this routine in 20 minutes. It was a flounder this time.
We’d beached the kayaks on the Indian River Lagoon spoil island half an hour earlier. We agreed—at least I agreed—that the kids would set up the tent while I built a fire and got lunch started. Mike and a fishing rod disappeared the second I went searching for firewood. Jenny struggled on with the 5-man tent, but when it rolled over in the 25-knot breeze, she headed off to either beat on her little brother for deserting her or just to stay competitive in the fish count. Probably a little of each—Jenny enjoys both sports equally.
| August 25, 2009
Anglers Unite for the Conservation of Fish Stocks
Capt. Barry Brimacomb demonstrates handling a big fish gently with the boga grip so as not to damage its jaw.
The most important steps an angler can take to ensure a successful release are to hook and land the fish as quickly as possible, leave the fish in the water while removing the hook, and release the fish quickly. There are several other ways to improve survival rates:
| August 08, 2009
Ted Williams Fishing Video , It was only 50 years ago that the first tailing bonefish were targeted by sport fishermen in Florida's waters. Here in a restored video courtesy of IGFA, famous baseball player and angler Ted Williams takes us back to an age when Florida's fishing was being discovered. Journey back in time and feel the sport as it was in it's infancy.
So that's how they did it!
In this vintage IGFA video, modern anglers will see antiquated boats, quaint skiffs and poling methods. These were considered the cutting edge just 50 short years ago. Since then Florida has managed to become the #1 sportsfishing destination in the world, reaping many billions of tourism dollars and providing anglers with many millions of hours of pleasure in the pursuit of game fish. Fishing is a quality of life issue. To activate Video, place cursor on the picture and click.
In the 1950s, famous baseball player Ted Williams became the best known sports angler in the world. In this 1958 video Ted is fishing with capt. Jimmy Albright, perhaps best remembered for the well known Albright knot.
The late Henry Aulton Griggs, said he once threw his net from Longboat Pass Bridge and caught 187 mullet in one throw. He used to joke that, if he had all the snook that he had caught during his lifetime at one place, there would be so many that 'you couldn't put them all in one pile.' Henry passed away at the age of 96 this year. He was a pioneer of snook fishing and his kids and their kids are all avid anglers today.
| July 28, 2009
Find big snook in shallow moving water in the summer. If you want to take a photo of your catch, make sure you hold the fish horizontally placing one hand under the belly for support and return the fish back to the water as soon as you possibly can.
Lunker Linesiders That Is....
In Southwest Florida the snook sits at the top of the inshore target list. Snook are one of the most sought after species in Florida. Their tenacious reputation has earned followers from all over the world. Snook are one of my favorite fish to catch. Snook are no pushover. They frequent heavy structure and they are masters of their environment. In other words hooking them is one thing, landing them is another. Whether it is the thrill of the hunt or the heart-stopping thump, snook fishing is contagious.
Snook can be found in a variety of inshore and coastal waters. They can tolerate a huge range of salinity including areas that are almost entirely fresh water. Cold water is something they cannot tolerate. They cannot survive water temperature below 60 degrees for a long period of time. They can easily tolerate water well into the 80’s.
| July 20, 2009
Passionate about catching and cooking, Capt Rapps shares recipes for Pompano and Snapper.
Capt. Rapps Recipes
Whole Pompano
You will need...
- 1 whole dressed pompano per person
- Olive oil
- Sea Salt
- Black Pepper
- Lemon slices
- Aluminum foil
- 1 good looking helper (important!)
It doesn’t take much to make fresh fish taste great. Being passionate about the catch and the feast doesn’t hurt. Captain Rapps, one of the newest member guides to join the Snook Foundation, obviously loves fishing and sharing everything about his ‘addiction’.
| June 07, 2009
Could a lure that mimics juvenile tilapia be the ticket to hooking up with truly hungry peacocks? Here's the reasoning: Tilapia, pictured above, were the most prevalent and consistent food item identified In studies of stomach contents of peacock bass.
Rather than flogging a bedding peacock with a clouser, try this!
A combination of research and connecting the right minds led to a new variation of a common saltwater fly that really gets ‘em.
It started about a year ago, when I met Paul Shafland, the FWC biologist responsible for introducing Cichla ocellaris to South Florida Waters. “From 1984 to 1987, we stocked about 20,000 peacocks in the box-cut canals of Miami-Dade and Broward canals,” says Shafland. “But prior to the stocking, we did plenty of research.”
He sent me some of his published, peer reviewed findings, and that is where the fun began.
| May 26, 2009
The time to go beach snook fishing is now!! 'Beachsnooker,' Ken Taylor, shares a few tips to make your beach fishing trips exciting and productive.
Tips for summer beach fishing
I love to sight fish for snook along our Southwest Florida beaches. Snook will readily take artificial lures and flies when prowling the surf. You’ll need a good quality pair of amber based polarized sunglasses in order to see fish in the surf in order to make proper presentations to active swimming snook.
A surf temperature of approximately 75 degrees and above is what is needed for the snook to become active and feed comfortably. DOA shrimp, white buck-tailed jigs, soft plastics with various tails, spoons, and twitchbaits will all work at times. When using lures with treble hooks, either de-barb or change to single hooks for an easier catch and release which is of far less stress on the fish.
| April 20, 2009
The Mad Snooker, Capt. Dave Pomerleau, holding a replica of the Record 53 LB 10OZ Snook caught by Gilbert Ponzi in 1978 -- "I'm just going to have to keep on trying to get a Snook like this, and during this dream I hope the phone doesn't ring" Capt. Dave has caught some true Monster Snook of his own -see photo below.
Record Snook now part of Snook Foundation Educational Display
Snook Foundation Thanks Atlantic Taxidermy, owner Joe Ribera, for his donation of this World Record Snook mount, which is now part of the Snook Foundation educational booth display.
| March 31, 2009
Author and guide Captain Fred Everson
Be prepared to Catch and Release a Monster!
Capt Fred Everson guides, builds rods and instructs anglers on all phases of snook and inshore fishing. His next class is on April 25 and is open for booking. Contact Fred at TampaBayFishingGuide.com. Here's an excerpt from Capt Fred's excellent and easy to understand book, 'Catch Snook'. This excerpt describes how to prepare for one of the most challenging of snook hunts- bridge fishing.
There are several ways to approach bridge and pier fishing, but the snook you find around this type of structure are routinely monsters, which are predictably most active at night. And monster fish call for monster tackle.
| March 31, 2009
What's bridge fishing like for a kid on a bike at 3am? The memories are indelible.
As a young boy, Angler and Artist, John Cote, learned to fish in the trout streams of New Hampshire. But when his family moved to Florida in his early teens, things changed. Rather than wandering fields and forests, "my fishing grounds were now bounded by how far I wanted to peddle my bike loaded down with tackle box, bait bucket, and a couple rods in hand." Here's his story of one night's fishing from a downtown Fort Lauderdale bridge....
The tide had just turned and was slowly heading out. I knew in an hour or so the snook should start showing up under the bridge.
| February 20, 2009
Your Input Requested
As Coastal Regions grow in population, we need to continue to assess the social practices that affect our fisheries, coastal habitats and specific stocks. We are asking you to participate by answering 6 brief Poll Questions that probe the effects of fishing tournaments. If you would like to provide more information, an opinion or essay on this topic, please send to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
| January 16, 2009
The Series III S51MR MirrOlure is designed to fall at one foot per second. This lure will trigger aggressive strikes from Trout, Redfish, Snook, and Tarpon from shallow to deeper waters.
Finding fish using a Count Down Lure
Finding fish on slopes and drops is easier when using a countdown twitch bait. Fishing flats that drop to ledges, holes and channel edges is the ticket any time of the year but it's excellent in cool water.
A fishing lure with a sinking rate of a foot per-second allows you to count its fall through the water column to the depth you desire to begin a twitching retrieve. This countdown method provides the accuracy needed for fishing deep flats, drop offs at channel edges, and holes.
Once the lure reaches the desired depth begin reeling and apply a sharp twitch to your rod tip to cause the bait to dart from side to side. This twitch-and-retrieve cycle followed by a countdown pause mimics a small fish in distress.
| January 12, 2009
A Mote Marine Scientist talks Fishing
As the years pass with more and more people fishing it's more important than ever to be aware of the importance of coastal conservation.
Long ago we passed the point where we could go fishing and head home without another thought. With more people fishing, and increasing stress on coastal environments, it’s more important than ever for anglers to pay attention to coastal conservation.
The first step toward ensuring long-lasting and healthy gamefish populations is responsible angling. Here are a few things we can do to lighten our footprint on the coastal habitats we fish.
| January 04, 2009
MirrOlure was founded by Harold LeMaster in 1937. Therefore, it's no surprise that someone determined the best way to tie one on over the years. This effective and easy knot works well for any lure or hook!
| January 03, 2009
Capt Mark Gore with longtime Friend Capt. Bill Miller (left) Television
Host of Tampa Bay's "Hooked on Fishing" show. Bill is on his first Rio
Hunting trip with Marks Texas Hunting Guide Service!
Snook Foundation Guide Capt Mark Gore knows Hunting
Guided Hunting Trips in Texas sound like blast? Join top Fishing and Hunting Guide, Capt Mark Gore of Tampa and you can count on it. We invite you to join one of the nicest guys in the field or on the water for a special Rio Grande Turkey or Deer hunt.
| December 02, 2008
Ethanol Gasoline Harming Boat Engines
Capt Jim Bandy, SW Florida Regional Manager of Port Supply a Division of West Marine estimates based on reports from his marine industry customers that 80% of new marine engine problems are fuel related and are due to ethanol additives
Because many boaters use older engines which were not designed to run on blended fuels, they may wish to avoid any gasoline blends with ethanol. Gas alcohol levels above 10 percent can cause major damage to most engines. However, there is at least one sure fire remedy.
| October 08, 2008
A rising demand in China for turtles for food and medicine has led to the round-up of turtles from Florida's lakes, ponds and canals.
An additional rule restricting the harvest of freshwater turtles goes into effect on Oct. 23. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) passed the rule at the September Commission meeting.
This restriction limits the harvest of wild Florida freshwater turtles to five per day per person. Each fisherman with a commercial license will be allowed to harvest an additional 15 Florida softshell turtles per day, for a total of 20 turtles per day.
This rule has been passed to protect freshwater turtle populations while the FWC develops a long-term comprehensive strategy for sustainable use of amphibian and reptile populations. Recent reports of unusually large freshwater turtle harvests coincide with reports that the demand for freshwater turtles as food and pets has increased.
| August 13, 2008
Where and When they are doing it, excerpted with permission, Saltwater Prey
Many of today's saltwater fly tyers have become incredibly adept at creating flies that closely mimic the many species of prey eaten by coastal gamefish.
In fact, there are some very good books of saltwater fly patterns, and these books provide an abundance of fly selections for saltwater anglers. But when it comes to selecting flies to put in the fly box for a day of fishing, or for a fishing trip away from our home waters, we tend to rely on our hunches, or on selecting flies that look fishy. This tends to happen when creating and modifying fly patterns, too.
What our selection process lacks is the connection between our flies and what gamefish are actually eating, and where and when they are doing it.
