Tampa Snook charters, Clearwater Florida snook fishing guide, Tarpon Springs fishing guide, 

Tarpon Springs flats fishing charters with Capt Ed Walker. 

Snook fishing here in the Tarpon Springs area (near Tampa and Clearwater)  rivals that of just about anywhere in the Florida or the world for that matter.

Each spring, schools of snook migrate out of the brackish rivers and backwaters and out onto the flats, mangrove islands, and local beaches. Here they intermingle with a variety of other species such as redfish, speckled trout, cobia, mackerel, jack cravelle, and small tarpon. Not coincidentally, huge swarms of scaled sardines also flood back into the area at this time. Snook fishing guides from all over the Florida West Coast anxiously await the return of both the bait and the snook fishing each spring. These early snook typically return from their winter hideaways in the backcountry and backwaters sometime in late February or early March. As the weather warms snook and more snook appear all along the coast. By mid March the entire snook population has reappeared and is scattered along the mainland shoreline. At this time, we do a lot of fishing around docks, under the mangroves, around oyster bars, grass flats, sandy beaches and small spoil islands.

Snook have a well earned reputation as one of the most challenging species you are likely to encounter while flats fishing. They can be finicky eaters, usually preferring to feed at particular stages of the tide in each particular inshore area. Some spots are better during the incoming tide, others only produce snook on the outgoing. In fact there are many snook gathering spots here in which the snook almost never feed. Schools of 25 to 100 may lie on the bottom and refuse any offerings regardless of bait, tide, or conditions. Understanding their habits and mannerisms is something that comes only with years of direct observation and experience. Perhaps the toughest thing about snook fishing is landing them after they are on the hook. Snook are arguably the smartest fish on the flats. When snook strike you can rest assured that they are going to run as fast and hard as they can for the nearest cutoff such as a mangrove limb, dock piling, of rock pile.

During the summer months most of the snook will have moved out to the passes (inlets) and the beach swash channels and sand bars. We sometimes exit the boat and walk remote sandy beaches to sneak u on the fish and tossing live baits to them as they cruise the edge in just 2 feet of gin clear water. It simply doesnt get much better. Pompano, permit, cobia, and tarpon also cruise the swash channels during this time of year so you never really know what is going to come swimming down the bar toward you next. It was here, during a tournament that the biggest snook Captain Ed has ever seen This monster cruised up and checked out his bait offering and turned it down before sauntering off in clear sight down the beach. It was easily a Florida state record snook but that particular linesider is still out there somewhere, haunting the the guide to this day. Maybe you can catch him while on your Florida snook guided trip.

A commonly asked question asked by visiting guests is When is snook season? Well, that depends. Snook are caught almost all year, with the exception of the coldest winter months. Snook fishing is closed to harvest during the months of January, May, June, July, August, and Dec 1-15. Since snook are primarily catch and release anyway, closed season do not really make much difference. If anything the fishing is better when harvest is prohibited as it reduces the fishing pressure, making it even better for catching snook!

Most of the snook caught here in Tampa Bay, Saint Petersburg, Clearwater, and Tarpon Springs area are in the 5 to 12 pound range with 15 pounders fairly common and a handful of true 20 pounders landed each season. A trip in the fall of 2001 even produced a new IGFA world record snook for us in the 12 lb line class.

If you would like to join us on a Snook fishing experience please drop us an email or give us a Call at (727) 944-FISH (3474) today to book your guided fishing trip for Snook.