Snook Report 9/3/07 Tomoka River

[lizardsrule]

First off I apologize if a snook report upsets anyone, I realize this is a bass fishing site.

Now for the report, WOW WHAT A DAY
Let's just say that this was one of my personal top 2 days fishing anywhere. My plan was to take JB's advice and fish for both snook and bass today. I was gonna fish in the am for snook, and then in the afternoon head upriver for some bass fishing. I launched at 6:30am, and it was slow fishing for the most part. I got a couple of snook, and lost a nice one by 11:30am. I knew the tide was gonna get me, and it did for the first half of the day I was heading upriver, and caught another couple snook, so far the biggest was 20". I knew a place that has produced some decent snook before, so I was trying to time it so I could hit the incoming tide, at this spot, and then head farther upriver for bassing. Well for once I timed it right, and I had the right bait, with the right presentation. 10 minutes after hitting this spot(let's just call it snook runway) I hooked into a absolute monster snook. This was the snook of a lifetime, it was probaly 48" long. I know because I fought it to the boat 4 times before it made runs with screeming reels. I kept trying to get it in postion to net it, but then it would run off. I fought this fish for close to 10 minutes. Every little thing was going through my head, I just retied, so we shouldn't have a breakoff, unless it decided to take me to the barnacles I had my drag set great, and the hooks were solidly set, both trebbles in the fish's mouth, which I did get to see. On the final attempt to get the fish close enough to net, it jumped right in front of me and snapped my line, and took off with my lure. I rarely get po'd, but I did this time, and screamed, and slammed my rod into the water. This fish had jumped numerous times, once right when I was trying to net it for the thrid time, it went under the boat, jumped up and smacked it's head against the boat on the opposite side. It was just plain anguish, and I felt like a virgin, on his wedding night, with his newlywed wife get's drunk and passed out. I grabbed a identicla lure(always buy three of any lure LOL), and tied it on and cast back to where I had hooked into this monster. On the third cast, I hooked into another decent snook, probaly 24". It jumped immediately, and broke me off again In five minutes, I had lost 2 of my three of these lures, with both being newly retied. Now believe me I know how to tie a palomar knot, and how to slobber on it, etc... Well I grabbed the third and last of these identical baits, and moved over some and began casting. On the second cast, bam another nice snook on. I landed this one with the net it was 25". I then proceeded to catch 10 more snook, between 20"-26" in the next 30 minutes. I was on it, I had all the mojo working, now, except I wanted one in the slot 28"-32" I casted again, and smacked my bait into some concrete, and litterally drove the trebble into the bait, and cracked it Yes I was casting hard, to get some good distance, and never would I have believed I could have done this. Well it was the ultimate highs, with the super low's on this day Well I did have some more of those baits, just not in that color. I am the tackle junkie remember So I tied another one on, and started fishing again. I hit 8 more snook, and boated all of then, the bigger ones were 25", 26", and 26.5", the littlest one was 18" I still didn't have my slot, but was just having a absolute blast, and had almost forgotten about all the bad stuff. The bite died, and I decided to work this area for another 30 minutes. After about 15 minutes I had another hit, and boy if felt good. After a decent fight I boated my slot at 29.5", which is also my new PB I was just ecstatic, and decided to make one more pass for the heck of it, just for fun, since my limit was filled. I hooked into another fish, and this fiah ran me around 2 pilings zigzagging around. I was weaving in and out of these pilings, and got stuck do to shallow water. I thought for sure it was gonna break me off, but somehow I managed to get the boat free, around all the pilings and still put the snook in the boat. It was 26" also. I've never caught so many hard fighting fish in one day. This was also my new PB for quantity of snook in a day 24. I would put this day up with my day of catching 2 10+lb bass in one day Needless to say I decided at this point to call it the day, and make the 30 minute boat ride back to the launch. If I would have had someone with me to net the fish I would have gotten the monster, but I did still catch a ton of nice fish. When getting my boat tied Up I got bit by some stinking ants. They weren't fire ant's but they still burned. I must say I shoulda moved to Florida many years ago, this is just a absolute fishman's dream coming down here, and catching the fish I have since being here, less than 2 years

Lizards