Its time to catch Snook in Tampa Bay week of 4/11/2010
Now is the time! The snook bite is on and they are keeping the rods bent.
I had a couple of trips this week and Snook has been the dependable bite. On Monday I had Gary and Carl along for a half day of snook action. The bite started a little slow with one hook up and a break off. After making a couple of moves and waiting for the tide to get just right it was all about catching. Gary and Carl hooked over 20 nice fish but due to break offs and hook pulls they boated seven nice snook.
Gary with a nice 29" Snook
Carl displaying one of the Snook he caught
In between charters I spent as much time on the water scouting. Getting the right bait is very important so time was spent looking for that as well as nice fish to catch. I found the bait now time to find more fish. I found an area holding some fat trout but also found a shoreline that had snook and redfish. I put this information in my mental locker to use on Friday when I had the pleasure of guiding Gary, B.J. and Nick for the Tamco Foundation Glad Slam tournament. For those not aware Tamco is a non profit organization benefiting wounded vets. Gary and B.J (aka Stumps) were both wounded in attacks as they served in Iraq.
Gary and B.J. both informed me that they had fish this event twice before. When they told me the name of the Captains they had fished with I have to admit I was a bit nervous as both of them are well seasoned anglers with reputations in the bay area that I now for the next six hours had to live up to.
Our first stop would be to try and knock the trout off of our species of fish to catch. It did not take long and Gary put two trout to the boat one being the a very fat 17 inch-er. We stayed on the spot a while longer trying to upgrade our catch but it was not to be.
The tiding was moving in now so it was time to work that shoreline I had found those snook and reds on earlier this week. It started out slow in this area with one hook up and a lose boat side. Fortunately these guys were patient and kept the mood light with there humor and stories. We continued to move from spot to spot until we got on a decent bite. We were able to get a couple of more snook in the boat with the largest at this point being 24″. I thought for sure we would get a Red in the mix but it just did not happen. Time was running out for this area so another move was to be made. The next stop proved to be a good producing spot. We had some good solid hook ups and after losing some very big fish to there leader fraying tactics B.J. boated a nice 29″ fish. We had one more hook up after that on a fish that would of easily exceeded 30″ but it was not to be.
It was time to head back in at this point. I was feeling a little down about the fact we did not get the redfish as that could of put the guys in the money so to speak. We got back to the dock and as we unloaded a gentleman came up and asked the guys how it went. The words out of there mouths made me feel very proud. They all exclaimed it was The best trip they had had yet!
I don’t have any pictures of there fish as they have not emailed them to me yet but I did get a group shot back at the dock.
B.J. with a solid 29 1/4" snook
Nick with a 24" snook
L to R Nick, B.J.(aka stumps) proud captain and Gary