THE BIG SNOOK

    She hit real hard yelled my wife. I have something really big on this time. I said don’t let any slack get in your line.

    

    My wife and fishing partner went out early that morning to fish the Pirate Harbor Flats for Redfish on the incoming tide. We could see tails waving in the air and slowly made our way out in front of where they were heading for an intercept. We got the and just went silent until the school or Redfish made it to within casting distance. I got the boat into position and went silent until the school of Redfish made it to within casting distance. We both made a cast to just ahead of the school and let our gold spoons sit on the bottom, hoping the school of Reds would not veer off left or right. When the school of fish got to wishing 10 feet of our spoons, I said just bounce the spoon up and down but don’t reel in any line. It only took a couple of bounces until both of us immediately were hooked up, and our fish were heading far away from the boat. It took a bit of time to reel them back in but we both managed to boat two oversized Reds of about 30 inches. The legal slot size for Redfish is 18 to 27 inches. So we let them both go and looked around to see if we could see the rest of that school and where they went. Nothing in sight but that’s generally the way it goes down unless you are tossing bait fish at the school to keep them happy and close.

    

    We motored to another location and I noticed something odd as we approached the mangrove shoreline. It looked like two large wings flapping in the shallow water. I had set the electric trolling motor in the water and slowly eased over to see what the hell was going on, as it was stationary. I got the boat to within 50 feet and shut the trolling motor off so we would not spook whatever it was. Then the light bulb lit, and I said it was a large stingray feeding in the grass. I bet that there are Reds feeding in all that commotions as well, something they will often do to get a free meal. Over the many years of fishing here in the Charlotte Harbor waters that I have managed to learn is that predatory fish will follow stingrays and manatees as both of these feed on the bottom often stirring up shrimp, crabs, and small baitfish that hide in the deep seagrass. I have seen 30 to 50 pound Cobia circling a small school of manatees. Tarpon will also follow manatees around. However, this time it was Big Redfish. We slowly drifted closer to the feeding action dropping both our spoons right into the feeding frenzy and managed to catch two more oversized Redfish out of that school.

    

    It was around noon, so we found some shade under some mangroves and had our lunch. We brought a couple of beers but choose water instead. After lunch is generally about the time we pack it up and head back to the boat ramp. Generally speaking, high noon does not offer good fishing unless there is a strong tide to move the baitfish or flushing out the small shrimps and cranes out of the grass flats. I was ready and said lets head to the barn…cracker language for home. But on this day, my fishing partner wanted to go over to Hobbs Point and fish the inside water along the shoreline, an area that we were both well familiar with years of fishing in that area. I said it wasn’t going to be any good as the tide is not moving yet and it's 1pm … she insisted and so we motored to our standard location and set out the trolling motor and slowly made our way north within casting distance to the mangrove-lined shoreline. There are three old telephone poles right at the edge of the water from where there used to be a house built out on the point years ago and now torn down. Most of the peninsula was made by a dragline that dug out the bottom along the leeward side of Hobbs Point sometime back in the 50s. The dragline would reach out as far as it could, about 50 feet from the shoreline, and gouged out the bottom about 6-foot deeper than the surrounding bottom to about 20 feet from the bank, which left a 6-foot deep depression about 20 foot wide by about a quarter of a mile long. Over the years, the bottom filled in a some but there was still a depression which seemed to hold fish.

    I was using my ultralight rod and reel with only a 4-pound test line, which is generally sufficient to fight and land very large Redfish when there are no obstructions to deal with. I had a 4 inch DOA shrimp soft bait on and was casting to the mangroves and back to the boat. I should have switched rods for one with a 10-pound test line. I made a cast and let the shrimp swing back behind the boat when all of a sudden my rod was about to be launched into orbit. I grabbed it just in time to keep it earthbound, and the rod bent nearly double. Then this huge snook leaped into the air rattling its gill plates and landed back in the water and went directly into the mangrove roots…pop went my line. I was dumbfounded and stunned, to say the least by its enormous size. I would guess that this was a 40 inch 35 pound plus snook. I knew that Hobbs Point held some really big fish, but this was the first time that I experienced them up close and personal.

    My wife was using a 5 inch weighted DOA Bait Buster, a pattern of a finger mullet, that my cousin from Texas had left behind the week before. She had cast directly ahead of our boar, as I was getting another DOA shrimp to put on my heavier rod when I heard her call out…Michael … Michael, I have something really big on this time. Whatever she had on, swam straight out into the deeper water of the little bay east of the shoreline. This was a good thing as I could follow the fish and give guidance to my wife on how to fight it. She wanted to hand me the rod, and I said NO…it’s your fish…you fight it. Now my wife could generally out-fish me on any given day and today was looking like that “Any Given Day” was happening. I looked at my watch when that big fish hit, which was around 1:30 pm. The big fish ran a lot of line off the reel which made me very nervous. The reel she was using was rated for 6- pound test line and she wanted me to put 8- pound test mono on the night before. I had some 8-pound line used as backing but had tied a 6-pound line on top to the reel's capacity, which was less than 100 yards using a 6-pound line. I took off the 6-pound line and tied on a new 8-pound mono upper section using 2 uni-knots. I have always made it a habit of tying a double surgeon's knot at the very end of the line as a stop knot and then tie my normal knots for the leaders or hooks/lures etc.

It's just a margin of safety in not having a knot completely slip off the tag end of the line. So here I am watching the uni-knots go out the rod tip and back on the reel several times during this epic battle, and hoping all along that those knots were going to hold up. The big fish decide to just rest on the bottom and not move, which had me a bit baffled as to what it was. We were 40 minutes into this fight and have not seen this fish yet. I kept telling her to not let any slack get into the line and keep the pressure on the fish. When the big fish decided to sit on the bottom and rest, my wife didn’t know what to do. So I went forward and told her to pull real tight and I reached over and plucked the line, which sends a vibration down the line to the fish and it took off again. We ended up over a quarter of a mile away from where the fish had first struck. It was now 60 minutes into the fight when I finally saw that it was another huge snook well over 40 inches. A few minutes later the fish was boat side and I managed to get the head and front belly of it into the landing net and got it into the boat. It was a big female. I held it up for my wife to get a couple of photos while I quickly got out my measuring tape and measured 43 inches in length and 26 inches in girth. I then got her back into the water. I held her by the mouth and got the trolling motor going forward slowly. It took about 10 minutes to revive her until she was ready to swim off on her own.

    We broke out those 2 beers in the cooler and headed to the boat ramp and home. Once I got the chance, I ran the measurement numbers of that big snook and came up with an estimate of 36.34 pounds. That was an epic battle for that size of fish on only 8-pound test mono in any book

    

    After a couple of months had passed, I decided to surprise my wife and have a replica fiberglass mount made of her snook for her Christmas present. I went to my local tackle store, in which I knew the owner, and asked him who he could recommend in making the mount. He said the only place he has his client’s mounts done was in Naples, Florida, and in fact, that company had an exhibit at that weekend's expo in our town. So I went to the expo and looked at some of their display mounts and found that this company did excellent work, and especially in the very details in the painting of the mount. I went back to my friend and asked if he would place the order and gave him the dimensions and the photo for coloration. I asked if this mount would be ready by Christmas. He said no problem and even gave me his discount. On Christmas morning I got up around 2 am and slipped quietly out to the living room and removed 2 of the duck mounts and got the fish out and hung it above the fireplace on the wall mollies that I installed earlier that day while my wife was at work. I went back to bed and got up when she did as asked her to make coffee. It took her a while to notice the snook… all was well that Christmas Day.

    Sadly, I would lose my fishing partner 10 years later to lung cancer, but every day I look up at that snook mount and remember that day as if it was yesterday.

  There is a lesson to be learned from this true story….always listed to your fishing partner…especially if it is your wife… who is the better fisherwoman.