Winter Time Snook

Fishing has been excellent so far this winter. We have been catching lots of redfish and spotted seatrout as well as lots of snook. The negative low tides can make for some tricky fishing, but if you find the fish, YOU FIND THE FISH! The snook tend to look for warmer water and will push themselves back into the creeks and canals. You can even find them warming themselves up on the concrete boat ramps. Good luck getting them to bite, but they are sure fun to look at! Spotted seatrout will start to push into the shallow flats looking for a nice shallow sunny spot and potholes to lay in. I have mostly been using artificial lures such a DOA Cal shad on a ¼ to 1/16 ounce jig head. We have been easily limiting out on trout with bonus catches of redfish and snook. The season for snook and redfish remains closed by FWC until May of 2019, but the fishing for them remains to be good. I was fortunate to help my twin brother land a monster snook that measured close to 45 inches and probably 30 to 35 pounds. It was an epic battle especially for catching it on light tackle with only a 20 pound test leader. The last two outing have brought 4 redfish, close to 40 trout and well over 60 small snook, with a few a half dozen being in the 24 to 33 inch range.