Tide: 0.9ft high at 12pm, 0.4ft at 6pm
Lately I've been doing a lot of exploring with the goal of finding places that no one else fishes...places that people overlook or simply don't notice on the map..places that get me out of my "comfort zone"..and more importantly, places that hold big snook in the winter! The past two days I didn't get on the water until noon which, in retrospect, seems to be the ideal time for targeting winter snook. The first day I started the afternoon off by cruising close to a sandy shoreline. Within a couple of minutes I spooked a snook about five feet off of the bank..that was a good enough indicator for me so I strayed about 25 feet off the shoreline, and continued pedaling down the shore. The sun was at an angle that limited my visibility but while pedaling I saw a big snook laid up in about 6" of water lying motionless. I had already passed her but I was far enough away that she didn't seem to notice I was there. I flipped a DOA CAL about 10 feet in front of her and could see her start to inch towards it. My bait landed in the direct path where she was headed but the angle made it so that if I started a retrieve it would bring the bait out of the zone. All of this time I was still drifting in the kayak and had to open the bail to let some more line out so that my bait wouldn't leave this so called zone. A good 20 seconds later she was within a foot of the jig so I gave one sharp twitch and she sucked that DOA up like it was her last meal! That one went 36" and put up a great fight.
The second day I knew where they would be hanging out from what I saw the previous day. On the first drift I nailed three snook to 25" which was fun, especially when you get to see the eat, but not what I was after. I continued on and finally saw what most people never get to see, at least in winter... a school of GIANT breeder snook. The only problem was that they were sitting in about two feet of water and by the time I saw them I was just about on top of them. Needless to say, they spooked. I continued on and caught a couple more small snook. Twenty minutes later I made a u-turn and headed back to where the giants were. I found them 15 feet away from where I spotted them earlier..they were just hanging around, doing what big snook do I suppose. At this point I'm standing in the kayak ready to fire a cast, hands shaking and everything. I cast the DOA on the edge of the school and as it hit the water, the bomb went off! I've never seen an eat quite like that before, not even from big tarpon on topwater. After setting the hook, she took off and didn't stop for what seemed like an eternity. Here I was, in the middle of winter..hooked up to a giant, drag pulling snook, with nobody around! I had 30lb leader so I had to be somewhat cautious especially with those vicious head shakes. I'm no stranger to catching snook, but this was like a completely different animal. The big one from yesterday couldn't match the strength of this fish so I knew it was at least three feet long. When I got the fish in close I could see that it was close to 40"..As I got a firm grip on her mouth, the jig popped out! Some things were meant to be. I had to use a combination of my measuring board and FS lawstick to get a measurement but she came out to be 41.5" with a pinched tail..My biggest snook to date! I took three quick pictures and then watched her swim away on the shallow sand. What a fish!
