Steve Anderson holds Harvey Shane’s 33-pound snook. The best spots to snag the popular gamefish are in the Intracoastal Waterway, local canals, inlets in Boca Raton, Boynton Beach, Lake Worth Beach and Jupiter, as well as off beaches. Photo provided
By Steve Waters
Snook fight hard and are delicious to eat, and there’s no better time to catch the fish than September.
The snook season opened Sept. 1 after a three-month closure on the Atlantic coast. One of Florida’s most popular saltwater gamefish, snook are protected during the summer because that’s when they gather at inlets as they prepare to spawn and are easy to target.
After spawning in Palm Beach County, many snook head back into the Intracoastal Waterway and local canals. But a bunch remain in inlets in Boca Raton, Boynton Beach, Lake WorthBeach and Jupiter, as well as off beaches, where they can be caught on live bait and a variety of lures such as jigs, plugs and soft-plastic baitfish imitations.
Because snook are so fun to catch and so good to eat, they are intensely managed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Anglers along the Atlantic coastare allowed to keep only one snook per day with a total length of 28 to 32 inches.
The season is closed from June 1 to Aug. 31. The open season is Sept. 1-Dec. 14, then it closes Dec. 15-Jan. 31, when the potential for cold weather can make snook so lethargic that unethical anglers could simply scoop up the fish with a landing net. The season reopens from Feb. 1 through May 31.
Boat docks and bridges also harbor snook this time of year. Snook hang around pilings and wait for the tide to bring baitfish or shrimp. Anglers who fish at night prefer bridges and docks with lights and fish their baits and lures, so they drift from the light side of the shadow line to the dark side. If you’re fishing a dock without lights, cast your lure or bait under the dock and let it sink to where the snook are waiting.
Tom Greene of Lighthouse Point, who grew up fishing for snook in Boca Raton more than 60 years ago, said bridges across the Intracoastal Waterway from Boca Raton to Palm Beach can be snook hot spots at the start of the outgoing and incoming tides. The fish will almost always be on the down current side of the bridges.
Greene said he’d cast a Flair Hawk jig and bounce it on the bottom parallel to the bridge and along the shadow line.
“The secret of snook fishing is that snook are feeding on the bottom, not on top,” said Greene, although he acknowledged that the fish will occasionally hit a topwater lure.
For those who prefer to fish in canals, Greene suggested slowly trolling diving plugs from a small boat early in the morning and in the evening. He said kayak anglers should fish early and cast plugs or DOA plastic shrimp around sea walls and docks.
Rain also plays a role in snook fishing this time of year. After heavy rains, spillways in South Florida are opened to release the excess water into the Intracoastal. Snook wait at the spillways to feed on small freshwater fish such as bluegills, shad and shiners that are swept through the water control structures.
Greene said top spillways include those in Boca Raton, Boynton Beach and Lake Worth Beach. His favorite way to fish the spillways is to hook a live or dead bluegill, shad or shiner through the bottom of the mouth and out through the top on a half- or three-eighths-ounce jig. He casts the bait into the fast-moving water at the mouth of the spillway and bounces the jig on the bottom.
“I would find myself at a spillway at daylight and fish that,” Greene said. “If you can’t make the daylight bite, fish a spillway late in the afternoon. If you have to work all night, you can still fish them in the middle of the day because fish at spillways will eat all day.”
Outdoors writer Steve Waters can be reached at steve33324@aol.com.
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