Fishing with Capt. George Tunison | Looking for some fun? Check out the snook superhighway
If you enjoy throwing lures and flies hoping to connect with a whooper snook that will test your knots and fighting skills, then by all means take the next 10 days off and go to work on the snook traveling and living along the Intracoastal Spring Snook Waterway starting at the W.P. Franklin Lock ending at Shell Point in Cape Coral.
Better make that a month!
Imagine a snook superhighway, busy with beach-bound spawning-minded travelers and a nearly unlimited number of 24-hour-a-day snook feeding stations like docks and other structures, creeks, canals and mangrove shorelines along the way to cast to? Welcome to the Caloosahatchee!
If you’re a gear fanatic like me, your boat is stocked like a mini Bass Pro Shop sporting at least 10 rods and 10 or more boxes of assorted lures and flies, which is fine as you’re ready for any river situation. But in reality and as in most angling scenarios, a handful of old reliable lures is all you need. Casting skills, boat control and learning to fish quietly and efficiently all are as important.
A basic Caloosahatchee bait selection would include a favorite top-water plug as well as a basic MirrOlure old-school sinking and relatively newer, suspending plug selection. Maybe an X-RAP stickbait as well as a few packs of traditional DOA or VuDu soft plastic shrimp, a few spoons, jigs and a paw full of fly rod faves and I’m ready for any river snook encounter. All in one box!
Docks are top targets along your route. If you cannot efficiently skip cast soft plastics, both forward and backhanded, under and around them, you are missing out on a boatload of big bites.
MirrOlures whether old style or the newer suspending plug type are both classic snook producers but treble hooks and easily swallowed plugs make healthy releases sometimes difficult for fish and angler, especially at night. Replacing these trebles is cheap and easy with inline super sharp singles made by VMC. Over the years many tarpon have taken to the air on a treble hook equipped small lure which is fine unless it’s deeply swallowed, it’s 3 a.m. and you’re alone trying to unbutton an unhappy green tarpon while sitting in a river full of curious sharks or even worse, a sudden head shake deeply hooks your hand.
Remember, working with lures, split rings and hooks without split ring pliers is an impalement waiting to happen, just a matter of time.
Now is also the time to get on the snook night shift. This past week we fished lit docks using Rapala X-Rap Twitchin Mullet lures, which are great suspending twitch baits already equipped with in-line single hooks which definitely hook and hold rampaging snook. These fish where inhaling the baits so deeply we removed one of the two hooks which made life easier all-around and had no impact on hooking performance boating a 39-inch high jumper.
Nighttime snook docks quickly shut down with loud boaters. Think stealth mode as you cast not right in the light’s cone but along the edges and in the darkness beyond that where the bigger specimens often hang out.
Not all snook move to the beaches every year to spawn but it’s safe to say a large percentage do. Now’s a great time to intercept a personal best along their Intracoastal travel route as they make their move to the beach.
Some tarpon were reported playing in the passes and in various locations in Pine Island Sound, as well as one report from the Sanibel Causeway. Captiva Pass is often a productive early spring staging spot for arriving fish.
Wind permitting, the offshore gang is hungry and asking for your fresh wiggling bait or even some frozen will do. Grouper, grunts, lane and mangrove snapper are waiting while sheepshead are still available on nearshore numbers.
Capt. George Tunison is a Cape Coral resident fishing guide. You can contact him at (239) 579-0461 or via email at captgeorget3@aol.com.