Don’t Always Aim For The Target
By Ray Markham    

     Most years I would be excited about September 1, eagerly anticipating targeting snook during the reopening of the season. My fishing a couple of weeks prior to the season opener is all about monitoring snook to target a keeper fish. In the past, I’ve rarely kept more than one snook in the year’s time, and the month of September would usually be the time I would do it. A few stragglers end their spawn by the new or full moon during the month. But since the freezes back in January, snook are scarce from the South Shore area of Tampa Bay to Venice as compared to previous years. An exceptionally high death rate occurred during the freeze, and because of this an emergency closure has been in effect, and remains until at least 12:01 a.m. September 17. The Marine Fisheries Commission could extend the closure beyond that date.
     Other fish on my target list are speckled trout, redfish, flounder, cobia, Spanish mackerel, black seabass, tarpon, grouper, and mangrove snapper. Mangrove snapper have not been around in good numbers either. When we find them, usually we may find hundreds in a school, but we’ve had to work for them lately.
     Redfish are beginning to show in larger schools of bigger fish. Upper slot fish in groups of 10 or more fish at a time are more common. Floating grass makes it difficult to get baits to these fish at times, however, rigging a soft plastic jerk bait like the new 5-inch MirrOlure Soft Mullet, Provoker, or CAL 5.5 Jerk Baits weedless on one of the new extra wide gap Woodie’s Rattl’n hooks will allow working these baits through the thickest weed patches without snagging them. These new hooks allow for excellent hook ups in fat baits, with or without a hook slot.
     Targeting snook in September may have been my goal early on, but for me, I‘ll be shifting my aim to other species.