I spent three days in hypersaline water’s of the Lower Laguna Madre last week targeting one of my favorite game fish: robalo commonly referred to as snook here in the states. Snook are aerobatic, strong, extremely aggressive, and their willingness to eat topwater plugs is unrivaled. I make a few trips to the Deep South every year to target linesiders, but due to various obligations a trip south didn’t look like it was in the cards this year until late last month after I convinced a couple of buddies, Sam and Tony, to tag along for the trip.
We planned to kayak the area because historically most of our snook have been caught on the flats in extremely shallow, oyster-ridden areas. Tony agreed to tow his Majek down with us so we could ferry the kayaks into the areas we wanted to fish. We fished hard every morning. Conditions weren’t exactly favorable; particularly the wind, but we made the most of our opportunities. We had short windows of light winds each morning.
We caught plenty of redfish on windblown shorelines using topwaters, and we also managed to catch a few trout and flounder on plastics in deep guts. The only snook landed on the trip was caught by Sam on a Lucky Craft Sammy. It was his first snook and it measured 25.5”, a good slot fish that was released to bring someone else joy one day. No monster robalo hooked or spotted this trip, but that’s what keeps us coming back for more: the pursuit of a formidable escape artist that boasts brute force and a ruthless attitude.
Also, I have a ton of pictures to post up. I will post them as I get a chance to sort through them.
Conditions:
Tide: strong outgoing tides in the morning
Water Clarity: clear
Depth: less than 2′ over scatter shell and grass
Wind: S/SE 15-25 MPH
Lures: Bone/Silver Super Spook Jr, LC Sammy, Gulp, and TTF flats minnow (mumpy glo)
Enjoy…
Sam keepin’ it gangsta…
Crammed hotel…
TTF…
Sam’s first snook…
Tony’s hog red…
Manly love…
Early morning ferry ride…
