“You can really tell the difference when you hook into a snook,”
said Capt. Allen Salinas, a Port Isabel guide for seven years. “They hit hard
and slash, rather than make a run like a red. They will slash through the water,
stop and make another slash — even coming out of the water
Salinas said the opportunity to catch a Texas snook attracts
a lot of anglers to the area.
“You are only allowed to keep one a day,
and the slot limit is 2428 inches, but everyone seems to want to catch one,” he
said. “We are catching a lot of oversized snook that are measuring 30 to 35
inches. The good part about it is that when someone does catch a keeper, they
are big enough to feed at least two people. Plus they are really good
The Texas snook have increased in numbers during the past
several years to provide anglers with the only fishable population outside of
Florida. The prime fishing time for Texas snook is in late fall or early winter,
although they can be caught throughout the year.
Unfortunately, the snook
are vulnerable to cold weather and will seek out structures in deeper water to
attempt to survive cooler temperatures.
Freezes in the late 1970s and
early 1980s nearly wiped out the Texas snook population and did shut down what
was once a prosperous commercial snook fishery in the Rio Grande Valley. Since
the 1990s, the population has been making a slow
comeback, and anglers in the know are taking advantage of the good-fighting,
goodtasting saltwater fish.
Rod Bates, a Port Isabel historian, antique
collector and avid snook fishermen, said he has seen a marked increase in the
number of snook in some areas over the past few years. He is a regular “dock
walker,” trying to pull big snook out of their hiding places near structures like bridge and dock pilings.
aggressive and a lot of fun to catch,” Bates said. “There are two kinds: the fat
snook, which never get to be more than about 20 inches long, and the larger
The aggressiveness of snook, along with their increasing
numbers, help make them a prize catch by both dock fishermen and for those
anglers interested in guided fishing trips out of Port
Working across the open flats of the South Shore, Salinas said
most anglers will spend time fighting a lot of speckled trout and redfish before
coming across a snook.
“We fish for reds, trout and everything else the
same way,” Salinas said. “The water is pretty shallow in most places, and there
is a lot of grass.”
Salinas’ Texas Twister lures are specifically
designed to put plastic jerk baits down in the grassy flats, where snook and
other sought-after species wait to grab a meal.
Casting the Texas
Twisters, sometimes put together as a tandem rig with one soft plastic bait
trailing about 18 inches behind the top lure, anglers are advised to keep the
lures darting and diving just above the grass beds.
Medium fast retrieves
are required to keep the lures out of the grass beds, with a little twitch every
few seconds to give the baits fish-attracting action.
“When the snook are
hungry, you can hook up with a lot of oversized fish,” Salinas said. “But they
seem to be more susceptible to water temperature and weather conditions, so it
can be hard to get them to bite.”
Hooking into good numbers of speckled
trout, redfish and other saltwater line-stretchers while waiting for some snook
action is a tough job, but more and more anglers seem eager to do
Ralph Winingham is a freelance outdoor
writer and photographer. E-mail him at email@example.com.