The snook spawning season is in full bloom, and normally that translates into a plethora of frisky male snook feeding freely, in known places falling victim to known baits. This year, well not so much. As with every other natural oddity that has reared its head since we moved here, the snook not being where they are supposed to be and acting the way they are supposed to act, just seems to be following the pattern. Extreme island flooding from monsoon rains. Extreme tidal flooding from just the right combination of extremely high tide, south wind, and super moon. Near direct hit from a monster hurricane. Redfish totally bypassing the island in their migration last fall. Each time, the local long term response is something like “I’ve lived here for 30 years and never seen anything like that.”
Now I understand that in the grand scheme of things, fishing oddities are not high on the disaster scale register. However, the pattern is clearly playing out that something new is at work, and that being adaptable is the key to success here. In relation to snook (no pun intended with the spawning season topic), they are here in large numbers and seem to be doing what snook do to make baby snook. The large females will swim around with a large pack of males close in tow, bumping her. I am told eventually she will release her eggs and the males fertilize them on the move. This week I saw the actual process play out where a large group of males were circling closely to a large female near the top of the water with the current going out to the pass where the eggs are supposed to go when ready to develop.
Unfortunately for the fisherman, snook are generally so preoccupied by the dance of love, that they seem to be very uninterested in eating most times, and seem particularly suspicious of even the most natural looking lures. So even with perfected presentation and appealing twitches, often we might only catch the odd small male or two. There are times between the spawning sessions where they get active and feed to recharge their energy, but you have to be in the right place at the right time, and often that time is waaaay past my bedtime in the early hours of the morning.
As Jason and I have been chasing these big momma’s that are grouped up by the hundreds sometimes, we have most often simply been ignored, frustrated, and left to only wonder what it might be like to hook the biggest of the battleships floating around. A key phrase that I use when trying to convince myself that the hundreds of unproductive casts might eventually payoff is “it only takes one”. And by that I mean, even though the odds are that a big momma will not all of a sudden change her focus and grab my puny little jig as it passes by, it only takes one of them to make a mistake, and then here we go. I suppose that may be the mantra of young men everywhere, asking girls that they think are “out of their league” for a date, but at the end of the day, it only takes one. But I digress…
As we left the house, I asked Jason if I should bring the net. We joke that sometimes we feel we jinx the fishing by being too prepared. I grabbed the net anyway because I like to be prepared, even if there were things to “jinx” the fishing, one of them would be not to be prepared. The evening was following the pattern of the others. A male here and there, a trout here, a jack there, even a snapper made the scene. We decided to take a walk over to the dock we call the “aquarium dock”, leaving our extra poles and net behind at the shark dock to be retrieved later. Travelling light, we moved up the beach to our next potential ambush point.
As expected, the snook were grouped up and active. We cast to them over and over with no response. When our patience began to wane and it seemed Jason was ready to pack it in for the evening, I think I actually said out loud “it only takes one” as I cast for the hundred and first time. As I came through the dark area of the water where the snook were congregating for that moment, I had the sweet heavy pull of success. As I have described before, the first seconds of a hook up with a snook causes things to race through your mind and decisions must be made. How big is it, can I muscle it away from the pilings, is the hook set clean, jig inside the mouth or outside, etc. Although the thoughts started to come, none of them really mattered as it was quickly clear this was a different story. This momma made a quick run vertically away from us, but then she seemed to decide that heading to Miami might be the way to solve her problem, so away from the docks she started a blistering run. In the past, most snook, even the big ones might run for a few seconds on a run, but quickly tire and return for their preferred approach of wrapping the line around the dock pilings.
I was a cool customer when she decided to run away from the docks, because it was clear by this time she was a monster and there wouldn’t be any muscling her away from anything. “Good news, just wait her out, she will get tired out on this run, and maybe I will have a chance” I thought to myself. Well the line just kept peeling off the reel and showed no sign of stopping. My reel originally had a couple of hundred yards of braided line on it. Over time, that amount was reduced by wind knots that required cutting off the last thirty yards or so. And in an unrelated measure, I had added mono filament backing on the reel that would keep me from having to add a lot of unused expensive braid when I fill my spool. At this point as the fish is still showing no signs of stopping, and I now see my 17# test mono filament line going off the reel, I began to question my logic of this cost saving measure. I was never supposed to see that mono, especially not in a situation like this.
Just when I began to reach for my drag setting to tighten things down and either put a stop to the run or break off the fish, she stopped. “A chance for me to reclaim some line”, I thought. She was not moving, and given I was pulling on the 17# test at this point; it was no time for a power up. Fortunately, as I made a bit of progress back to me and got back on the braided line, she turned and seemed to decide it was time for the next best thing to spooling me, which was to seek the shelter of the docks. I took up line as she raced back to me, knowing what was coming, but not really able to do much about it. When she made it back to the dock, it was clear she was exhausted, but still battling on with all her weight and power, surging against the tide to get around that piling. She did manage to wrap me, but she was high in the water column, so the leader line rapped around the plastic covering used to prevent barnacles. So there she was, rapped nose first against the piling, with my line pulled tight to hold her there. Stalemate, and eventually she would win – either regain her energy or the leader would simply give way.
As I am bent over trying to keep the line at a good angle to hold the fish fast where she was, and not really having any good options, Jason asked a brilliant question. “Do you want me to go get the net?” I said “Yes!”, but I really thought “there is no way this fish is going to stay pinned against this piling in this strong current for the time it will take you to go back to the shark dock and get the net”. Jason was off and running and I was still bent over trying to figure out how to keep the beast at bay for just a few minutes. She was so exhausted from the fight, that she actually turned belly up a couple of times. As I expected however, the water flowing over her gills was returning energy to her body and she began to revive. If only she could be still just another minute or two.
Jason returned just in time to see the fish getting frisky again. We had only seconds to act or it was all over. The fish was so large, and the water moving so fast, it was hard to get the net in position to land her. After a couple of failed attempts, it appeared to be inevitable we would lose the fish. Just then, she swam up current which let me pull her back around the piling. Freed from that position, Jason was able to get the net around just over half her body and began lifting. It was clear the weight of the snook, the awkward angle of the net, and length of the net pole, was making it hard for Jason to raise the fish to the dock. Quickly I reached down with my free hand and grabbed the net pole a ways down the shaft and together we raised this monster over the rail of the dock.
Relief and excitement hit at the same time as the physical size of this snook became apparent. Jason has begun to bring a tape measure with him to evaluate how big the fish are for comparison purposes. This one measured at just over 37 inches. That is a very large snook for the gulf coast. They grow larger on the Atlantic side. A few pictures and back into the water to revive her. After several minutes, she was ready to go back and resume her reproductive activities. It only takes one.
David