Many anglers find that catching fish using manmade artificial lures adds flavor and challenge to the adventure of catching fish. This is especially true for the many snook anglers in Florida, on the Gulf of Mexico, and in most of the world's sub- and tropical water. People pay a lot of attention to snook, and there are almost as many lures for snook as there are people fishing for them. But once you understand a few basics about why some lures work better at certain times to catch snook, choosing one over another will be easier. You should consider having a tackle box of lures specifically to catch snook with; the 'snook tackle' box could be developed – the lures anyway – from this simple article about picking lures to catch snook.
Picking the Perfect Snook Lure
Challenging, tough, and tasty, the species called Robalo by our Spanish-speaking angling community fights hard and is never too easy to fool. Picking the perfect lure for the species can only be done if you consider the season of the year, where the fish are likely to be, and which sort of bait they're eating at that time. Even how hard the wind is blowing is important to selecting the right snook lure to match the situations at hand.
Topwater and Floating Lures for Snook
The first lure to consider for snook are Topwater lures, also called Floaters. The best time to use them is in the spring or summer, but they work all year. They work best when the wind's hardly blowing or not blowing at all. They need to be seen to work, and very rough conditions make them invisible to you and the fish.
Snook are so-called 'Superior Fish', which means they're built to look sideways and up. They look down, and they eat baits from the bottom, but the fact that their lower jaw is longer than – and extends past – their upper jaw means they look up more than then look down. A lure that floats at the top of the water column will attract their attention when times are right and conditions are calm or at least not windy.
A topwater lure can come in many different colors, shapes, and sized. But they can be categorized by what they do and/or what sounds they make – and what they do to the surface of the water.
Propeller lures. Propeller lures are usually (but not always) cigar-shaped, longer then they are thick. Pointy ends make way to small propellers – on both sides or only on the back or front. The propellers spin and bubble and cause a 'wake' just like the propeller of your boat does. The wake and the noise the props make when they turn and bubble on the surface attracts fish. They either thing it's an injured baitfish or are angry that it is making that stupid noise, but they strike them.
When a fish hits a topwater lure, it is very easy to pull hard or try to set the hook. If you do you will almost invariably pull the lure right out of the snook's mouth. The lure will move too fast, and move away from the fish. If you see a fish hit a topwater bait, simply lift up the rod and feel the weight of the fish before you give it an ever-so-gently snap to set the hook. Pull too hard and too fast and you will either lose the fish or kill the fish trying to pull all twelve or eighty hooks out of the side of the fish. Set the hook soft when you're fishing with topwaters and you will do better and be a better steward of the species.
Suspension Lures for Snook
Suspension lures work all year, and are very effective lures for catching snook. They are designed to simulate real fish, and can include vibrating, rattles (most have them, in fact), lips, fins, and probably soon they will have their own propulsion systems and will transfer fish over the internet. But for now they look like fish. Although fish will certainly hit weird looking lures (buzz baits come to mind), suspension lures that look remarkably like live Scaled Sardines, Pinfish, Threadfins and Shad have caught a lot of snook.
So your first ones should be ones that look like the bait you think the snook are likely to be eating. In the wintertime it's pinfish, and in the summertime it's Scaled Sardines or small Threadfin. And it's small mullet all year round. There are suspension lures that simulate all four. If you are going to target snook throughout the year and you want to do it with lures, think of having a few sizes of all four suspension lures.
Something you want to consider when building your snook tackle box is exactly where in the water column the baits suspend themselves in the water column. In the wintertime, snook are likely to be deeper in the water. As the water warms and the fish head out of the deep residential canals and into the passes and onto the beaches for their annual spawn, they start feeding higher in the water column. Snook will hit a nicely-presented suspension bait all year – don't get us wrong. But in the winter and hottest summer, when fish might be looking deep to stay warm, or are near the deeper residential docks, pick a suspension lure that sits a third of the way down. 12' of water requires a lure that will suspend at 8'. Summer flat fishing for snook calls for a lighter suspension factor, so a Scaled Sardine lure should sit at perhaps a foot – or less – to keep it in the strike zone of snook feeding on grass flats.
Sinking Lures for Snook
A sinking lure sinks to the bottom and will simply sit there if you do not retrieve it and make it move, scrape, or bounce off the bottom. Most sinking lures used for snook fishing are meant to simulate a shrimp or other crustacean, and lures like lead jigs are usually what comes to mind. That said, you can find lures that look like fish and still act like a dead fish sinking to the bottom.
Sinking lures work all year, but they are particularly deadly when the fish are in, or moving into or out of deeper water. They seem to work best in the deeper channels and on the bottom where snook live on nearshore structure. They draw hits from just about any fish species, but snook are aggressive, and will beat a redfish to a properly presented sinking lure.
Sinking lures can be any color, and usually have a soft-plastic tail attached to them by the people that use them. The jig head can be very effective if flavored by a strip-lure made from a natural substance like shrimp or fish – draw strikes. Several companies make such strip lures, and they're an excellent alternative to actual dead baits like squid or frozen shrimp for the committed lure anglers.
A general statement about snook lures
As mentioned, there can be suspension lures that will eventually sink to the bottom. There are also baitfish simulators that will float to the surface and stop – sitting there and often drawing a hit when making not a dimple on the vast ocean. They attract fish – as do all floaters – simply sitting there doing nothing. But start reeling them, and they start swimming down. Reel fast for ten seconds and it dives to four feet; stop reeling and POP! – it shows up again like a Russian sub popping to the surface after losing power on the north pole. Other lures will start to sink when you cast them, but stop once it's sank five feet and not an inch more. Lure manufacturing – and analysis – gets more sophisticated every day.
A spoon, for example, can catch snook all year and almost anywhere. It can be retrieved fast and kept on the top of grassy flats and draw hits from snook as quickly as it would have on a freshwater lake's lilly pads, where black bass bedding below strike rapid-retrieve gold weedless spoons.
Retrieve it slowly, and develop a "cadence" on the retrieve, and an angler can make it rise and fall from eight feet to the surface and back again, creating a wave pattern if seen sideways that will have some fish hit the lure on the drop while others – on other days but similar conditions – will only it it when you're raising its motion by rapidly picking up the tip of the rod during the sequence called the retrieve. Reel it slow enough, and bounce it on the bottom? You can make a jig out of a gold, silver, or colored spoon.
So when you're picking the perfect lure for catching snook, think about season, where the fish are might be, and pick a topwater/floater when they're near a calm surface, suspension lures when they're midway in the water column when they're below the surface, and bottom lures – sinkers – when the water's coldest.
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