Snook fight hard and are delicious to eat, and there’s no better time to catch the fish than in September.
Snook season opens on Sept. 1 after a three-month closure on the Atlantic coast. One of Florida’s most popular saltwater gamefish, snook are protected during the summer because that’s when they gather at inlets as they prepare to spawn and are easy to target.
After spawning in South Florida, many snook head back into the Intracoastal Waterway and local canals. But a bunch remain in inlets, as well as off beaches and around fishing piers, where they can be caught on live bait and a variety of lures such as jigs, plugs, and soft-plastic baitfish imitations. That means land-based anglers have just as good a shot at catching a snook as those fishing from boats.
Because snook are so fun to catch and so good to eat, they are intensely managed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Anglers are allowed to keep only one snook per day with a total length of 28 to 32 inches along the Atlantic coast.
The season is closed from June 1 to Aug. 31. Open season is Sept. 1 to Dec. 14, and then it closes Dec. 15 to Jan. 31, when the potential for cold weather can make snook so lethargic that unethical anglers could simply scoop up the fish with a landing net. The season reopens from Feb. 1 to May 31.
For anglers without boats, the fishing piers in Deerfield Beach and Pompano Beach are good places to try to catch a snook, but it can be a challenge. One of the great mysteries of the undersea world is why snook that are caught and released at fishing piers all summer suddenly stop biting when the season opens.
It’s not that the fish have left the piers — you can usually see snook swimming in front of the underwater camera at Deerfield Pier (https://deerfield-beach.com/1474/Live-Cameras) — it’s that they’re not too interested in eating. Nevertheless, a few people always manage to catch a keeper snook.
Some anglers use sabiki rigs to catch baitfish such as pilchards, then put the baits back out on heavy outfits with egg sinkers to keep them near the bottom where the snook hang out. You can also use a small gold hook baited with a piece of shrimp to catch small jacks, pinfish, and croakers for bait. Or you can buy some live shrimp, the bigger the better, to tempt a snook to bite.
When fishing from piers at night, the best place to fish your bait is along the shadow line in the water, because snook typically lurk on the dark side of the line and ambush baitfish that swim along the edge.
Boat docks and bridges also harbor snook this time of year. Snook hang around pilings and wait for the tide to bring baitfish or shrimp. Anglers who fish at night prefer bridges and docks with lights and, like pier anglers, fish their baits and lures so they drift from the light side of the shadow line to the dark side. If you’re fishing a dock without lights, cast your lure or bait under the dock and let it sink to where the snook are waiting.
Tom Greene of Lighthouse Point, who has fished for snook for more than 60 years, said bridges across the Intracoastal Waterway in Pompano Beach, Deerfield Beach, and Boca Raton can be snook hot spots at the start of the outgoing and incoming tides. The fish will almost always be on the down-current side of the bridges.
Greene said he’d cast a Flair Hawk jig and bounce it on the bottom parallel to the bridge and along the shadow line. He also recommended working a Spooltek lure along the bottom.
“The secret of snook fishing is that snook are feeding on the bottom, not on top,” said Greene, although he acknowledged that the fish will occasionally hit a top-water lure.
Those who prefer to fish in canals can try the Hillsboro and Cypress Creek canals anywhere west of U.S. Highway 1. Greene suggested slowly trolling diving plugs from a small boat early in the morning and in the evening. He said kayak anglers should fish early and cast plugs or DOA plastic shrimp around seawalls and docks.
Rain also plays a role in snook fishing this time of year. After heavy rains, spillways in South Florida are opened to release the excess water into the Intracoastal Waterway. Snook wait at the spillways to feed on small freshwater fish such as bluegills, shad, and shiners that are swept through the water control structures.
Greene said the top spillways include the Cypress Creek in Pompano Beach and the Hillsboro in Boca Raton. His favorite way to fish the spillways is to hook a live or dead bluegill, shad, or shiner through the bottom of the mouth and out through the top on a 1/2- or 3/8-ounce jig. He casts the bait into the fast-moving water at the mouth of the spillway and bounces the jig on the bottom.
“I would find myself at a spillway at daylight and fish that,” Greene said. “If you can’t make the daylight bite, fish a spillway late in the afternoon. If you have to work all night, you can still fish them in the middle of the day because fish at spillways will eat all day.”
And if you’re successful, you’ll be eating fried or grilled snook for dinner.