As we near the opening of snook season, I decided to test out some new grounds and see what kind of what was hiding where. Oddly enough, I don’t rarely keep the keeper snook I catch during season, but for some reason I feel better targeting them while they’re legal.

I decided to go to some canals around satellite beach, as I had a feeling wind may become an issue, and I liked the mangrove to dock ratio. I honestly don’t fish docks that don’t line mangroves very much, as I feel that the mangroves add the extra cover, and give you something in between docks to work. Bait was everywhere, but I didn’t see much crashing it. I decided to start with topwater right at sunrise, I was getting smacked, but the largest hookup and land was a micro 18” snook. I used some fiddler crabs for about an hour with the hopes of getting some mangroves for tacos, and was catching under sized sheeps and mangrove snapper on almost every single post I tossed at. Couldn’t get a big one, though.

I saw some reds running back and forth around the mangrove shoreline, so I switched to DOA shrimp in gold glitter with a glass rattle, and tipped the hook with pink shrimp fish bites. Oddly enough, my first 3 casts up under some docks near the shore produced 3 keeper mangrove snapper with the largest being 14.5”. I saw what I thought was a 22” snook clap my lure, then realized it was a large trout at the boat and lost it.

It may just be me, but I don’t see a huge amount of trout around. When I do they are either babies or beasts. I managed to get one more baby snook, and called it a day. All in all it was a day full of catching, but as Cooper mentioned in his report, I thing using mullet or whitebait and (my take) hitting the waters at sunlight and sunset is the key to slamming some large fish. They were there, but looked well fed from the bait pods. I hope you guys are safe out there, and I expect this snook season to produce some great reports.

Keep Slaying!