Snook: My Gateway Drug to Kayak Fishing Addiction

Flashback. It is January of 2017, I was in the process of leaving my position as Assistant Football Coach at LaGrange College in Georgia where I was a very poorly paid, small college position coach. At this point in time, I had fished, I had basic fishing knowledge, but I was by no means an avid angler or anything of the sort. I wanted to get into high school teaching and coaching, where I could receive a full salary and benefits and one day start a family. I had always wanted to live in Florida, so I took this as an opportunity to make the move. I had been offered an Offensive Coordinator position at a school in North Florida, the head coach, was an avid kayak angler. He showed me a sample playbook on my interview, showing me the vision he had for the offense he wanted us to run. One thing that stood out to me was that a lot of the offensive terminology was named after popular fish species in Florida. I grew up in coastal Georgia, I knew what Trout, Reds, Sheepshead, and Snapper were, but one species/blocking scheme caught my attention. “Coach, what the hell is a Snook?”

Well, I am a curious fella, I looked it up. I was captivated. I moved to Ocala in February. I said I wanted to learn how to fish inshore for Snook, life was busy, football was going well, I just never did. I moved to Brevard County in February of 2020, a few weeks later the world ground to a halt. I used the time and boredom to do something I had been putting off for sometime. Learn how to fish inshore. I’ve talked a bit about this journey before, I started in a 200 dollar sit in kayak (not designed for fishing). I started going out and tying up on bridges and catching fish with live shrimp – mostly Snapper, Sheepshead, the occasional Trout, Redfish, oh yeah – and catfish….way to many catfish. In June of that year I caught my first Eau Gallie River Tarpon! BUT… Where was Snook at?

I was starting to “figure” some things out. I could go out and catch fish consistently. Moving away from shrimp to artificial lures allowed me to cover a lot of water, and have more control over what I was targeting. At this point I had caught hundreds of Speckled Trout, and my fair share of rat Reds on artificial. BUT… Where was Snook at? I felt like I was fishing in areas where they were, but I couldn’t buy a Snook bite.

Then one night, in May of 2022 it happened. My wife and I were actually out fishing together, our kids were spending the night with my parents, and we had been fishing some canals around Mather’s Bridge in Indian Harbour. We both caught a bunch of Trout, then I decided to skip a white DOA curly tail grub under an overhang in the mangroves. I was slowly retrieving the bait when THUMP! A few moments later my wife took the picture above. I swear, I thought I was going to cry. It’s just hard to describe after 15 months of wanting so badly to catch my first Snook, not understanding how, not understanding why I couldn’t, knowing that I know enough about fishing at this point, it should have happened by now! All that frustration and longing melted away in just a few moments. Sometime that evening I started to think, and one thing in particular really was at the forefront. Knox….Snook are not AROUND the mangroves, they are IN/UNDER the mangroves. Within a month of that night I had started to develop an arsenal of presentations that would allow me to catch more Snook. By the end of the summer of 2022 I had probably caught over 100. Honestly from that moment on, I no longer had any doubt I could target them, catch them in numbers. As far as quality goes, well that’s another story.

But as someone who has a long, strange, passionate, obsessive, yet complicated love affair with the line sider. I thought I would go over a few basics of how to set yourself up for the highest probabilities of success in generating Snook bites. Disclaimer: This is geared towards those who were like me 3 years ago. If you know what you’re doing, this is probably going to be boring from here on out.

I am writing this today because as we roll through May and into June this will be the best time to target Snook. There are some general rules of thumb to consider to increase your chances, and to maximize strikes and opportunities. Snook like warm weather, but they are ambush predators (VERY similar to Bass) and prefer low light conditions to hunt. Early mornings, late evenings or cloudy/overcast is the best time to try and target them with topwater, or outside of structure. They may be roaming a bit outside, but they will not be far away! Once the sun is up in the sky, look for shade. Shaded docks, or shaded pockets of mangroves.

Due to the amount of time they will be under the mangroves, and how much skip casting you will have to do to reach them, there are 2 main stay lure/bait presentations that can really help you to increase your chances. There are two things you have to be cognizant of…can I fish this in and under mangroves without being snagged? Can I get this bait ALL the way back in there? Below is a visual of what I mean.

When choosing soft plastics to get under the mangroves, I look for density and how “fat” the sides are. Fatter sided, denser baits will skip better. As far as what you are looking for, see below.

I’ve caught so many Snook as a result of skipping soft plastics under mangroves, most of the time when I hook an upper-slot or over-slot Snook it results in a migraine. But it’s all of those moments that make it really special when you land a quality Snook.

Snook are a lot like Bass. But they get bigger, their runs are harder, and they have sandpaper mouths and razor sharp gill plates. Much like Bass fishing with artificials, the average weekend warrior angler will probably have a “dinks to donkeys” ration of 10:1. If you want to hunt trophy’s, then fish with live bait. The chances of hooking larger Snook is much higher, as well as being able to “gear up” to increase the likelihood of landing them. Being an artificial guy, I know that I will have to sift through a lot of smaller Snook and be ready when the time comes for the big thump. In my experience, if you are catching smaller ones, stay with it, and stay on it! I have found that staying on the pattern will lead to the best chance for a big bite. Case in point, these are 3 Snook I caught back-to-back-to-back this past November.

My general rule of thumb is 10 pound braid to 20 pound leader. On my spinning rods, this is what I will use for “skipping”. There are times when I start with 30 and if I don’t get bit in 2 hours, I will go down to 20. I prefer Fluoro to Mono, but I don’t think it really matters all that much. This has got to be the most challenging part of targeting Snook on artificial. If you gear up too much, they won’t bite, gear down, and good luck landing them, cowboy. I’ve caught somewhere close to 500 Snook if I had to guesstimate in 2 years. Only 2 have been “over-slot”. Now that being said, I’ve probably hooked a dozen over-slot fish. Not all have been broken off, some throw or spit the hook, and some I never get hooked all the way because I am so keyed up on trying to get them turned and out of structure I am not patient in letting them really get it before setting the hook. This summer I will be focused on really working topwater, not just because it is the most fun, but because that’s a style of fishing where you can get away with using heavier lines and leaders.

I am not taking anything away from Largemouth Bass, Speckled Trout, or Redfish. But those species of fish aren’t unique to Central and South Florida like Snook are. If you’re moving here, vacationing here, new to the area and are wanting to jump out there and start targeting Snook, I hope this helps you! I am not saying this is the best or only way, this is just my evolution (or revolution?) Maybe it’s been a Revolution of Evolution, either way I really struggled to get any Snook to bite when I was starting out fishing here, then I figured out a few things and it really helped. I still get my butt kicked by larger Snook, but I am just glad I am finally in the game!

Until next time!