The first week of June marked the beginning of closed snook season, and the beginning of spawning activity in the ocean inlets in south Florida. My friend from the northeast, striped bass master, Scott Paciello of ESPN, made a good angling guest in this trip. We fished the last three hours of the outgoing tide and boated about 12 to 14 snook from around 9 to 28 lbs.- all on Berkley Powerbait pre rigged 4" ginger ale shrimp, 6" pre rigged swimming mullet in sand perch color, and on the 4"copper shrimp.

Scott was an easy student. All I had to do is tell him to pretend that he was fishing for stripers along a New York jetty, and that they were all on the bottom facing the tide. From there, he did fine. The only little trick he had never heard of was the downcurrent presentation of the bait, versus swinging the lure in front of the school of fish. Instead, I use the technique of bringing the lure from behind the snook, and having the bait face into the tide. This results in far more strikes due to a triggering of the snook’s predatory response. In short, they will pursue a bait that is going away from them, and will become intimidated by a bait coming right at them.

The tackle we were using included the new Fenwick Inshore series of rods- particularly the 7’ and 7’9" Back Country plug rods armed with Ambassadeur EXT 6600 reels. Both performed flawlessly and the rods in particular have taken the torture of coming in contact with concrete bridge railings, trolling motors, and the punishment of being used with line testing far above the ratings, and they still are all in one piece. In fact, none of the prototypes of that series has had a single incident. The line used was Stren Super Braid 40 lb gold and Stren Tinted Fluorocarbon leader in 80 lb test gunsmoke (to match the clear, blue water of the inlet). The importance of an invisible leader cannot be overstressed. Crystal clear leader is far more visible than a leader that is tinted to match the water color, so it is essential to use a leader that is totally invisible. This is due to light being able to travel down the leader like a fiber optic cable. The Stren Tinted Fluorocarbon comes in tannic color to match inshore, mangrove laden water, while the gunsmoke matches clear oceanic water. Always remember, presentation is 99% of the game- especially in snook fishing. The week following this trip, I did the same drift with trusted field tester and snook jigging master, Steve Grimsley of Orlando. On the first five drifts down the ledge, I put five snook to the boat and Steve had no hits. At this point, he asked what he was doing wrong, so I switched him to the gunsmoke Stren fluorocarbon 80 lb leader. On the next drift he hooked up instantly and we were neck to neck the remainder of the evening. We ended up with 19 snook from 8 to 31 lbs on the same baits.

Enclosed are photos of several of the fish from the Scott Paciello trip. When a large snook is caught, it is essential to return them to the shallow shoreline from where they were caught due to the large amount of predators including goliath grouper, bull sharks, and especially porpoises. As I was returning one large snook to shore with Scott driving the boat, I was reviving the fish with my thumb in its mouth and my arm about a foot underwater. As I noticed the bottom below me in the gin clear water, I asked Scott if we were in about six feet of water since I could clearly see the bottom, and he stated we were still in 35 feet; so needless to say, I yanked Mr. Snook out of the water until we got closer to the rocks. I am not sure of what was below the snook, but it wasn’t bottom. Be careful and keep an eye out for sharks as you release any fish.