| 02 March 2009
Capt Van Hubbard: First and foremost, go fishing for fun.
A new twist on circle hooks keeps your bait in place
Remember that smart fish, (and snook could be the smartest,) do not waste their energy.
Some points to ponder in choosing your fishing spots: Snook do not like cold water. They are sub tropical and love hot water. When it’s hot, they will hold in a shaded current flow waiting patiently for food to be delivered. The Snook Motto may well be, Why work harder than you need to? Current seams, pilings, points, jetties are all examples of feeding stations for hungry snook; key word hungry. Resting fish hold in different places out of currents.
Plan your tackle.
I use Daiichi "Bleeding Bait" Circle chunk light hooks exclusively for snook. A green target bead adds attraction puts your bait in that "sweet spot" on the end of the hook and keeps you from double hooking bait fish.
I like the color of Bleeding Bait hooks even after the red wears off to gold, my second favorite color. They are sharp and do not hurt my favorite fish by deep hooking them.
They are so sharp I had to get with the TTI tackle reps and develop a new tool. We use a Target Bead to prevent our minnows from double hooking on the razor sharp hook point. The key is placement.
The bead must rest just past your minnow, holding it between the barb and target bead. This varies with the size of your baitfish but pin it close between, and you will almost totally eliminate double hooking baitfish. How many times have you reeled in a double hooked baitfish and missed your trophy fish? Once is too many, and it is a frustration you can eliminate now.
Don't blow the bites
A slot snook has usually been caught before. It knows what a hook feels like. It may lightly inhale your offering and reject it before you even realize you had a bite. You really need to see this to understand it, but this is a fact.
If you use new leaders constantly feel it for abrasions. Try to maintain awareness of your line at all times. Watch the TV shows when the guys have hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line. They follow their lures precisely. Never slack lines, no wasted movements just stay with the lure.
Feel your equipment as you play your hooked fish. Hold your ground but do not pull line off your reel -make the big snook do it. Let em take line- don’t give it away.
Be careful how you handle fish to be released. Get cameras ready before you remove your trophy from the water. Lean over and take shots looking at Mrs. Monster Snook in the water. Get your angler to look back and smile.
Once landed, if you want to lift the snook up out of the water, please hold her horizontal. Ron Taylor, Florida’s preeminent snook biologist, passionately believes this is much healthier for your trophy than vertical.
Do not lay fish on a dry boat; wet your hands before touching the fish. If the fish was deep hooked, cut the leader before releasing it. These are some simple methods that could save hundreds, even thousands of snook to fight again and make more baby snook. I can tell you that Daiichi Circle hooks have saved hundreds of snook on my boat alone each year. You have to fall asleep to deep hook a fish on the Bleeding Bait circle hooks.
We have a big problem in some areas of the state with flipper liking snook dinners too. If bottle nosed dolphin come around to enjoy your released fish you have no choice but to leave. It a shame but careless anglers have trained these mammals to enjoy free lunch at snook stocks expense. You can try and wait em out but free delicious food is hard for them to abandon.
Please do your part to help protect the game fish we love almost to death. As Bill Mote helped me understand so well by his example” Give back” and we can all continue to enjoy snook for generations to come.
--- Captain Van Hubbard, Snook Foundation Advisory Council
