On a hunch, I headed for the beach today to sight-fish snook in the surf. It was great!
They were plentiful and hungry.
First snook of the morning was a really nice one. Ended up catching and releasing 16. Lost 5-6 more. Had 5 other takes.
All were caught on D.T. Special, the only fly I use to sight-fish in the surf. I used my 4-weight TFO Finesse, 6-pound tippet, 20-pound fluoro shock leader.
I estimate that I saw 400-500 snook in the surf today.
Nice snook:
Surf snook:
D.T. Special:
a 4-weight? that is just awesome!!
thanks for sharing
Nice! That’s gotta put a pretty serious bend in the 4 weight.
Sounds fun, especially on a 4 weight.
steve,
this may be a dumb question but, do people eat snook?
Yes, snook are great to eat. But they’re highly protected. When the season in open, the bag limit is one and slot is 28-32.
Wow, what an awesome fishing day you had!! Love the pictures too!
Thats not to shabby, I bet there’s a lot of eating from a 28-36 inch snook.
Nice catch , nice story, nice pic, you can’t ask for more than that. Now which beach did you say it was. lol 
I imagine there is a lot of meat on a big snook. However, I haven’t killed a snook in 25 years or so. They’re so highly regulation and the season is only open 5 1/2 months out of the year. So, I just don’t think I need to be killing them.
When the season is open, you are allowed one slot fish per day.
BTW, it was Manasota Key.
The shortest fish you can keep in Florida is 28". That’s enough meat to feed at least 5.
They are wonderful eating, and they definitely can be overharvested. Poaching is, in my opinion, rampant in my area. I think the really large fish are returned relatively unharmed but a lot of out of slot and out of season fish make it into coolers. For that reason, I rarely keep a fish.
Unbeatable sportfish and really fun to look at and release.