The concept of a big fish eating a small fish is not new, and often the subject of cartoons. But the real world is not a cartoon, and if you’re a small fish, the chances that a big fish is going to see you, smell you, or hear you (before killing you) are very high. If not swimming naturally, baits yell “EAT ME!”. Even moving quietly they can be smelled, seen and felt.
If you fish with live or dead natural baits on a regular basis, then you know that on any given day fish will eat whatever you put in front of them. Soft plastic baits, in particular, are increasingly manufactured with components making them smell like natural bait. But live and natural baits work best.
The Best Baits for Snook
Certain baits work better at certain times of the year, while some bait cannot be found when you need them. Days we could only get nasty frozen baits have turned out incredible.
Shrimp
Shrimp are the best bait to use if you want to catch a snook. The fish will eat them in winter up the rivers, and in residential canals or in clear summer waters. You can buy shrimp at most bait and tackle shops, and they’re a natural bait anywhere snook are found.
Scaled sardines are our personal favorites. But not everybody can throw castnets, and making live sardines takes effort and time. Add to that wading and surf-fishing -- and pier and other shore-based locales – and whitebait is not the best bait for snook. They’re the most productive, and the most natural, but they’re not the best. Shrimp are the best. In the wintertime snook are easier to catch on shrimp because the shrimp are easier to cast and keep in the strike zone without recasting.
Grunt
Grunts make a grunting noise and that’s where their name comes from. Grunts will catch snook nearly every time you put them in the water. Assuming you’re fishing where the fish are, if you put a grunt near a snook, he will eat it.
Get a pigfish (grunt) and you'll get a snook.
The sound they make is unlike the drumming sound you’ll often hear from a redfish or black drum. They make the sound if you touch them, and if you put them on a hook, they grunt a lot. When they grunt, they’re calling snook from places you did not know they lived. Grunt are arguably the single most productive live baitfish you will ever use to catch snook, but they’re not easy to find and catch. Look in backwater estuary mouths and the outside corners of residential canals.
Scaled Sardines
There are many different baitfish in our waters, and being predators, snook are likely to reach first for the ones they see the most. Remember, predators are lazy. Lazy means they eat what is most available: what we call Whitebait. Whitebait is normally found early in the springtime, when water temps get above about 68 F. When the water temps fall below 65 F or so, whitebait becomes hard to find except in deep waters, and even then are scarce. Warm winters can result in the baits being around all year.
Pinfish
Pinfish are an all-around bait for all Florida sport fish, drawing strikes from grouper in 200 feet of water as quickly as being grabbed by a redfish in eight inches of skinny water. Snook love them, but you will draw more strikes if you give them a “Hair Cut” and clip the sharp and (to you and the snook) dangerous barbed tip of their dorsal fins.
The ubiquitous Pinfish.“Finger” Mullet
Mullet are common in our waters, and they are generally eaten when smoked or fried. But they’re also eaten by snook. Small mullet – called Finger Mullet because they’re roughly four-to-five inches long – are a top-knotch bait for local snook. Hook them through the tail or lip and they’ll live for hours if not struck by a marauding linesider.
Ladyfish
The biggest snook caught are caught on live ladyfish, often 12” and longer. This shiny and stinky fish are a favorite of bigger fish, although using them as bait is often challenging to somebody that thinks a 30” fish is unlikely to eat a 12” bait. But they do – and their 40 or 50 inch older and more experienced brethren eat them like candy. You can use chunks as dead bait (called Live-sticking)
Silver Perch
A bait you will often find in your castnet when you’re trying to catch killifish is the silver perch, which have been called “Whacky Baits” by some of our friends because of their unusual look.
But the shiny white and lively bait is very productive – especially in the wintertime. We do not catch them on purpose, but they can be found on sandy edges of grass flats and in deeper sandy holes on the flats themselves.
Sand Perch
Sand Perch are another species of the perch family, but their color, and seemingly their attractiveness to hungry snook, seems a little higher than their silvery cousins. Sand perch are another of those baits we catch once in a while, but when we do we get them on a hook – freelined or under a small cork popping bobber – get them quickly. They are very productive and effective if you’re trying to catch snook that aren’t cooperating.
Threadfin
Threadfin are in the Herring family. They’re called threadfins because of the long extension they display on their dorsal fin, which reaches almost to their tail. They grow considerably bigger than sardines, often reaching five or more inches.
The Threadfin Herring is a great snook bait.
They are very popular tarpon baits, and are caught more often in open water than in the shallow water where you’ll find whitebait. But they are very effective snook baits, albeit a little more tender and likely to die quicker on a hook.
Crabs
The last bait we’ll talk about in this brief article are crabs. Whether they’re blue crabs with hard shells (smaller ones are better than bigger ones), softshell crabs, or even fiddler crabs on small wire hooks, crabs are baits that snook eat under normal conditions, and will definitely eat if you have a hook on them.
A Pass crab is great bait for snook.
Other baits that will Catch Snook
Almost anything – if it smells or looks or sounds good – will attract hungry snook or anger one enough to strike the line. Without a doubt, live baits and shrimp are better, but we have ways you can catch a fish on a jellyfish, but that’s best left for another story.
Squid are generally used in the winter for snook.
Try a strip of squid fished on a Fishfinder rig. This outstanding producer can attract almost anything that swims. A basic fishfinder rig will put the bait in the strike zone – especially in colder months when snook tend to stick closer to the bottom.
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