Sunday, September 2, 2001

Hooked on snook

Photo illustration by John Bruce/Caller-Times

Houston angler Doug Pike switched to live bait long enough to snag this impressive Florida snook, caught near the manicured lawns of opulent Martin County homes.

STUART, FLA. - Sharply silhouetted palms against a pastel sky did little to deter our concentration and aim. We knew the nearer we flung our Top Dogs to the pilings of bridges and boat docks or to tangled mangrove roots the more likely our plugs would be crushed by an under-bite strange to us.
   Anticipation wouldn't serve to soften morning's first jolt. Houston angler and scribe Doug Pike was first to discover this in the Florida dawn. The audible slap and yank of even a small male snook on light tackle is hard to match in Texas waters. Though the rocks and jetties of South Padre offer a fair chance at what anglers once called saltwater pike.
   I turned quickly toward the racket to watch Pike wrestle the fish to Mike Holliday's sleek flats boat. He released the five-pound fish unharmed.

Before this trip, I'd never landed a snook.

   Snook are as popular as table fare as they are coveted sport fish in Florida, where Redfish and trout are secondary targets. But during the months of June, July and August, snook season is closed. So it's catch and release only.
   Such was the beginning of three tackle testing days of catching Florida tide runners, mostly in the shadow of Martin County's multi-million dollar homes. It's how I spent my summer vacation.
   Drawn by the promise of species rarely tackled in home waters, I was among a handful of Texans seeking thrills on the so-called Treasure Coast during the last week of July. Our angling efforts, aided by Holliday, a competent guide with Maverick Boat Company and Rufus Wakeman, owner of River Palm Cottages and Fish Camp in Stuart, were rewarded in the fertile

Sardines are among the baitfish Floridians call greenies.

lagoon created by the junction of the Atlantic Ocean with the Indian and Saint Lucie rivers.
   As it turns out, early morning plugging was more about humoring Pike and me. Though we caught some nice fish on hardware, the serious snook snagging would come later.
   Don't let the proliferation of Florida flats boats on the East Coast fool you into believing the state's inshore waters are all about fly-fishing and poling clear-water shallows. There is plenty of that. But anglers here won't hesitate to scoot into the surf to catch bait for snook and tarpon, which lurk in the, coastal channels, riverbeds and lagoons.
   The generic name given to Florida baitfish is greenies. And catching them is a social event, where 18-foot skiffs bob almost at arm's length from 45-foot Bertrams in search of scaled sardines, pilchards and threadfin herring, which we were told snook cannot resist.

Click here to view a larger image.

   Finding dense schools of baitfish in 31 feet of water off Bathtub Beach is about as quick and easy as getting them to strike a Sabiki rig, a multi-hooked set of barbless jigs that resemble a miniature speck rig. We caught as many as six baitfish on one retrieve and within 30 minutes had enough to last for hours.
   Here, good fortune generally lasts as long as the thrust of a good trolling motor will push against a hard-driving tide. In other words, the slack in "slack tide" definitely applies to fishing success, which ends abruptly when floating buoys lose their tilt.
   Also answering the dinner bell of a moving tide for us were bluefish, barracuda and jackfish. And while Pike and I stubbornly stayed true to our love of lures for a while, we couldn't resist a taste of local culture.

Snook have adapted well to civilization. We caught plenty at the entrance to this exclusive waterfront community.

   OK, maybe I had more than a taste. Admittedly I caved first.
   In addition to mangrove roots and dock legs, the rocky shores, breakwaters and sand humps that guard the St. Lucie inlet proved to be productive waters for snook up to 21 pounds for us. Imagine if water conditions had been ideal.
   Before our arrival, rainfall runoff from surrounding swamps had emptied tannin-stained freshwater into the Florida equivalent to our Laguna Madre. The yellow-brown flow still was clear by Texas standards.
   And most every greenie thrown into the brackish brew returned in the powerful jaws of a snook or some other aggressive predator.
   After two days of this, I passed on a sure thing for a chance at tarpon. I had never caught one. Neither had my frequent fishing partner, Cotton Johnson. So we teamed up with guide Rufus Wakeman, who had jumped two tarpon the day before.

Summertime means catch-and-release only to Florida snook anglers.

   Tarpon in these parts usually are caught along deep waterways using one of two methods, drifting with greenies or soaking greenies from an anchored boat. Normally I'm not prone to either tactic.
   But Wakeman assured us that the thrill of a 50-pound tarpon or better - even when battles don't end favorably - more than makes up for the boring prelude. Having hooked and lost a tarpon on the North Jetty at Port Aransas, this leap of faith was a short hop for me.
   So we drifted with greenies.
   And we soaked them stationary, resulting in a broke off barracuda, a broke off something else and a couple of gafftops.
   This was a little more buildup than I expected, but not more than I could bear.

Signs marking manatee zones were common throughout the St. Lucie/Indian River area of Florida's east coast. We saw none of the giant mammals.

   Then it ended, but not so mercifully.
   Interrupting our sedentary float, a rod assigned to me pitched violently. I lunged toward the wheezing reel, snatched the rod from its holder, jammed the butt into my gut and struggled to hold it high. Turning the crank was unthinkable.
   My eyes fixed on the source of power. Then they were dazzled.
   With one wrenching writhe it was over in a splash. My line had snapped.
   The fading image of the silver king dancing on the water's surface left us speechless for a moment, as it should.
   "Zing, pow," my friend labeled the experience.
   I won't say what I called it
  
  
  

Talk about fishing in the Coastal Bend