Snook Of All Sizes Keeping the Rods Bent

Inshore around Naples and Marco Island, I am having great success with the snook for the last week. Leaving the dock in the dark most mornings to hit the lower Naples Bay and Gordons pass area for the sunrise bite. We are catching as many as 20 snook in just 45 minutes at first light using 3 inch lipped plugs along the shorelines. A cast tight to the cover and retrieved at a moderate steady retrieve will draw the strikes. Most of the snook are in the 18 to 23 inch range, but we are also catching a few mixed in around 28 to 30 inches. A great way to start any day! Last Saturday the 16th, I fished the annual Gator Club fishing tournament benefiting the UF School of Construction. Veteran tournament anglers Tim Rushing and Doug Poe were my partners. We had a great day placing 3rd, missing 1st and 2nd place by just a few inches. We boated lots of nice snook in the morning highlighted by Tim's 40 inch, 20 lb. snook which was by far the largest in the tournament. Unfortunately, we were unable to find any sizable redfish, although we did manage to fill our card with schooly sized reds. The bottom line is we had a great time fishing together as always and the tournament raised alot of money for it's charity. Here is a shot of an excited Tim with his monster snook...{%image_id=21797%} Yesterday, I took out Mike Milano from Lola, WS. We enjoyed the early action as we both released snook after snook on plugs. As the sun came up, we headed south down the beach and rounded up several dozen live thread herring to fill the baitwells. We headed to a "honey hole" where Mike continued the action with several nice snook to 30 inches along with some nice gag grouper running right at 24 inches. All fish were released. We had a great morning and headed in as the sun heated up. This is a great time of year to get out early, beat the heat and catch some great action!