This fishing trip was a snook fishing trip.  We started our trip around 3pm, after the daily temperatures had peaked, and the day began to start cooling back down.  We planned our trip around where Travis and I thought the snook would be.  Just two weeks ago the snook were stacked up inside the coves during the spring high tides, but we were anticipating the fish thick on the beaches and in the passes.

The day was incredible.  There wasn’t a cloud in the sky.  The temperatures were hovering around perfect.  Even after nightfall the temperatures were cool, but generally quite comfortable. And because it was a Monday, there were hardly any boats out fishing.

We started on the beaches of honeymoon.  When we started the tide was really high.  The water was quite clear.  We could see all the fish right throught the water.  It was perfect for sight casting snook.  The fish were loaded up on the beach.  We could see a wide variety of species on the beach, including schooling red drum.  We were sight casting grunts, but the snook turned down the grunts time and time again.  We were only able to catch a big flounder with a shrimp on the bottom.

After having little luck with the snook on the beach, we then moved down to Clearwater to give the schooling beach snook a shot down there.  We fished the Sand Key jetty.  This jetty has so much life, you wouldn’t believe it unless you got in the water to see for yourself.  I’ve never seen so many species of fish in one place.  On this particular day we used the handfull of shrimp left in the livewell to catch the jacks loaded up on this jetty.  Big schools of jacks are found on this jetty all summer long.  With the handful of shrimp left in the livewell Travis got on a rogue Pomponano mixed in with the jack crevelles, and blue runners.

We kept a blue runner to try on the Sand Key mitigation reef only a mile down the beach.  We were hoping to catch a goliath grouper with the blue runner.  We fished the rockpile reefs, but only came up with small gags, grunts, and a keeper snapper.   We couldn’t keep the undersize fish off the end of the line if we tried.  The biggest gag was about 10 inches. Still, the rockpile was super consistent.

After the sun set we knew the snook fishing would be on fire, and that we would hook up with some nice snook. Just inside the pass things seemed quiet on the surface, but we knew monster snook were lurking under the surface.  With all the white bait around, and the spawn in effect, how could they not be?  The fish below was caught in a eddie on the side of the pass, along a sandy bottom.  The fish gave Travis a good fight.  He quickly landed and released the fish.

Unfortunately, as Dolphins do, a couple hungry ones moved into the area where we were fishing.  They, like us, were trying to catch snook.  After seeing these resident dolphins in the water we knew it was time to leave.  Surely, the dolphins had chased the fish away.  Before leaving Clearwater, while under the lights, we netted some whitebait.  We still had a few grass grunts left, but we wanted to be prepared with every possible food snook prefer.

We tried fishing the marina under the bridge to Clearwater Beach.  There were a few snook sitting on the rockpiles in the marina.  Travis hooked a nice one, but after the fish breached the surface and shook its head, the hook quickly came out.  We fished the marina for a bit longer, then headed back to Hurricane Pass.

By the time we got back to the Dunedin area it was about 10pm.  The tide was about at the low end, and it was just starting to come back in.  We began fishing the pass, free-lining whatever bait came out of the well.  We fished along the shoreline, drifting baits with the current, walking along as the baits drifted down the beach.  We tried the grass grunts, pilchards, mullet, and threadfins.  All of these will work, and all seemed to be working, except for the mullet.  We hooked a few snook in the pass on this incoming tide.  In front of us and all around us the snook were blowing up.  The fish were crushing bait, thanks to their spawning ritual.  Travis lost one when we first got there.  Then, he landed one in the rip coming off the corner of the island. I missed the last hookup of the night, when the fish broke me off immediately after being hooked.

Soft pops on the surface, and explosions off in the distance were keeping us entertained well after the moon had set. We fished late into the night, and we hooked up with many snook over the course of the evening.