My First Snook

[HenryC]

My First Snook
By Henry Cordova

from Florida Wildlife Magazine, Mar-Apr/'08

Every summer, the family used to rent a little frame bungalo at Indian Rocks Beach on the Florida Gulf coast.  In those days, Indian Rocks was a strip of small houses on a barrier island between the sea and the lagoon that separated it from the mainland. The main drag of the town was behind the back door, on its other side stretched a line of small businesses that catered to the needs of the vacationers and the locals.  We were Floridians from nearby Tampa and our two weeks at the beach was always shared with relatives and friends from the city.  They crowded the little house, sleeping on cots and on the floor. It was a happy time for a kid, lots of familiar faces and good food, beachcombing, fishing and swimming--sand in everything.  We didn't always stay at the same place but they were all pretty much the same; the beach was lined with them, one next to the other, just a few feet from the water.  Australian pines cast a cool shade on even the hottest still days and the hiss of the wind in their needles and the endless murmur of the surf was a constant background.  At night, the sounds came through the open windows along with the seabreeze and put us to sleep almost immediately, no matter how much we tried to stay awake so we could listen to it. It remains one of the fondest memories of my childhood.

The mighty Indian Rocks fishing pier was there too, always within walking distance of whatever house we had rented that year.  It's gone now, a victim of a hurricane, but it provided the center of social and recreational life for the little resort community.  It was a grand wooden structure, wide weathered boards erected on massive, barnacle-encrusted pilings extending a thousand feet into the Gulf.  At night it was a dazzling sight, floodlamps illuminating the green sea and providing an occasional glimpse at the creatures that lurked beneath it.  Beyond was the blackness of the sea. Bait fish were attracted by the lights and it was not uncommon to see big channel bass and whiting swimming by along with a host of other species.   A few of the slower and dimmer ones even allowed themselves to be taken by anglers; enough apparently, that the fishermen kept coming back.  It was one of the big attractions for us and you could fish all night, with all the amenities required to get you through until morning if they were biting.  And the next day, with a little luck, there would be fish for dinner.

The grown-ups went fishing almost every night after having slept half the day, but I couldn't match their stamina and usually went back to the house to sleep soon after midnight.  It cost a whole dollar for me to go with them, having just turned 12, the age where the pier management started charging admission; so I was told in no uncertain terms that if I couldn't last the night I had best not come at all.  I had my own solution: I chose to fish from the beach so I could quit whenever I wanted.  All that day I spent my time catching bait, the ubiquitous little sand fleas that inhabit the sand by the millions at the surfline and started fishing at sunset, right after the big folks left for the pier. I went out with my bait bucket full of the little guys, my tackle, and a lawnchair to catch the sunset and do some serious fishing.

It's a magic time when the sun sets on the Gulf.  The land cools faster than the sea and the rising air leaves a void.  The seabreeze rushes in to fill it while the great red sun sinks past the edge of the world.  Sometimes, if conditions are just right, the last bit of the solar disk winks a flash of green as it vanishes from sight.  The clouds lie in heaps along the horizon and turn into a million shades of salmon and pink and blood red while the sky darkens from blue to purple, and finally to a starry black. As the night creeps out to the horizon the wind picks up, warm and moist, and the gentle waves follow each other up the sand, only to rush and hiss as they slide back into the sea.  Sometimes if you're lucky, far out to sea, you can see the silent flashes of a distant thunderstorm.
The numberless gulls and pelicans and man-o'-war birds have gone to roost, but even at night, the black skimmers still strafe the swash, feeding where the waves break, dragging their lower beaks in the thin film of water as they fly just inches above the sand. The lights on the pier wink on, and except for the occasional nighttime beachcomber, you are on the beach alone. 

You hook sand fleas through the shell on their back, the sharp point of the emerging barb concealed by the legs and bristles as it penetrates through to the other side; a long wire leader protects the soft line from the teeth and sharp gills of your prey.  It's a cruel business, there is cruelty in all this beauty; the sea can be the deadliest of places, as well as the loveliest. The rig carries a big weight so you can cast against the wind, far out into the deep channel lying between the beach and the sandbar you know lies just a bit further offshore.  The lead sinker will slow down the bait from being carried inshore too fast by the steady pressure of the tide.

We didn't believe in light spinning tackle in those days, I used a stout long rod with a fine old surf casting reel spun with braided line.  It was a trick throwing the beast, you had to keep your thumb on the spool so the spinning drum wouldn't overtake the line and cause a hopeless snarl, just hard enough to keep it turning at the same speed the line was paying out but not so hard the friction would slow it down excessively.  The rig would fly through the air, out of sight into the dark where a tiny splash and a flash of white would tell where it landed. When reeling in, your finger had to guide the line back and forth so it took up evenly on the spool, keeping just enough tension on it so it didn't get cut into by subsequent coils.  Failure to do either meant an ugly snarl the next time you cast. But that old tackle was forgiving, too.  If you did get a snarl, the line could always be untangled; it didn't kink like modern monofilament or form such tiny knots it had to be cut away.  It was easy on your hands and if you did lose some in the water, it posed no threat to marine life.

The fish weren't biting that night.  I got a few nibbles and caught a few small ones, but no keepers.  The highlight of the evening was a small stingray, it was released too.  Near midnight, I finally decided to give it up, the bait was getting stale and wasn't staying long on the hook.  The breeze died down and I knew in a while the mosquitoes would soon turn up, looking for a few bites of their own. I started gathering up my gear and hauling it back to the house, leaving the rod propped up in a hole in the sand.  Under certain conditions of tide and surf the channel between the beach and the sand bar formed a natural highway for big lunkers who prowled it, swimming leisurely up-current searching for food washed off the beach and the bar, or for critters naturally residing in the deep water between.  But that night, there just didn't seem to be any action.  After securing my tackle and policing the area, I started to reel in. 

The first few feet of line came in easily--then stopped.  Something was wrong.  Was I snagged on the bottom?  Try as I could, I could not get the line free. I tried every technique I knew, pulling at it from different places on the beach, jerking on it, even walking straight back; the tip of the leveled pole pointing directly at the place the taught line emerged from the water.  Nothing worked so I decided on my last trick--I walked slowly back up the beach increasing tension on the line until it would either break the hook free or part.  If that failed or if I felt I was in danger of damaging my gear, I would have to cut the line.  It was best not to do this if there was any possible way to avoid it...this was where we went swimming every day and I didn't want to leave a hook out there.  I pulled the rod back to near the breaking point, hoping the steady pressure would finally shake the hook loose...and then it pulled back!  First a gentle tug, then another, stronger one, and then a colossal heave that almost knocked me off my feet.  There was something big and angry on the other end of that line, and it was in no mood to go quietly.

I knew instantly this was the biggest fish I'd ever hooked.  It had to be a shark, nothing else could be that strong.  Also, it didn't seem to jump or fight much.  It just tugged, slowly, irresistibly, as if it just decided to start moving slowly away from the force above that had intruded into its life.  The pull was so strong I had no opportunity to set the star drag on my reel.  It was off, but all I could do was hang on to the pole with both hands and to try walking back up the beach, using the strength of my legs to forcibly pull him closer to shore.  My tackle was pretty heavy, and as long as the line held I was pretty sure it would not fail me.   But when the fish decided to move, I had no choice but to follow. It physically overwhelmed me, if he had headed out to sea I would either go with it or have to let go.  Fortunately, it just swam parallel to the shore, dragging me along with it.  Somewhere out there in the black, warm water, between the sandy bottom and the gentle waves, was a great fish fighting for its life.

I don't know how long the struggle went on, it seemed an hour, although I realize now it couldn't have been more than just a few minutes.  But I was determined to land this monster.  I used no skill, no clever tactics releasing and tightening the drag, just brute force.  I pulled until it pulled back and when I started to lose ground I made it fight for every inch.  The battle took me up and down the beach from ankle deep water to the inland edge of the sand, always north, up-current, parallel to the shore.  I pulled back on the rod and cranked furiously on the reel as I dropped it to the horizontal, gaining a few feet of line each time. It was not muscle and cunning against intelligence and skill, we were just locked together, two opposing physical forces joined by a thin cord of braided nylon. And there was no visible sign of it, no splash, no roll, no fin cutting the water; it just moved inexorably along, connected to me.

After a long time I finally caught a glimpse of it, a flash of silver in the dark.  This was no shark, a tarpon perhaps?  I couldn't think of anything else that big in these waters, but even though I was a novice angler, I knew tarpon were not very likely to be caught off the beach.  The fight continued, and slowly I forced the great fish into shallow water; I could see it thrashing and fighting now as the waves broke over it.  It was huge, and too big to drag across the bottom--the water was no longer deep enough to support its weight and it rested on the sand, still fighting.  I dared not put any slack in the line for fear it would shake off the hook but I wasn't about to wade out to where it was and grab it, either.  It was a stand-off.  So what's a kid stuck in a jam do?  He calls for a grown-up!  I started screaming, yelling for help, I didn't care who I got out of bed, I just wanted someone to help me get this monster out of the water.

I didn't have long to wait.  In a moment a man appeared, an elderly gentleman staying somewhere down the beach.  He told me later he had gone for an evening walk,  watched the entire struggle and decided to just let me and the fish settle it between ourselves.  He instructed me to stay where I was and keep the line taught, and he went down into the gentle surf and recovered the animal, picking it up expertly and carrying it away from the water.  I was exhausted, and so excited, but I still remember exactly what he said, "That's a mighty fine snook you've got there, son. She'll make really good eatin'."

The fish was big, about a yard long (we never did weigh it, it was destined for the oven), although I recall feeling somewhat disappointed; I had imagined it much bigger. It was nowhere near a record, but still much larger than the average for that species. We learned later when we cleaned her she was female, and in her gut we found a rusty old fish hook. The old girl had fought other battles before, and won.  It was the biggest game fish I'd ever seen up close, and the only snook I'd ever laid eyes on, except as pictures in books.

I sat and talked for a while with the old-timer, breathlessly recounting my adventure in detail to him while no doubt embellishing the tale shamelessly.  After he left and the fish grew still,  I carried it into the house, spread some newspaper on the kitchen table and laid the snook on it.  It would be the first thing my family would see when they came back, (probably empty-handed) from the pier.

[Pacman]

It is well known here in SW Florida that eating snook is not a good idea.

Snook tastes soapy and the fish smell is almost impossible to get out of the kitchen.  Some old timers have said that eating snook causes health problems.

Better to just release them back into the water as quickly as possible or, better yet, to avoid fishing them altogether.

Our tourists would be much happier fishing our huge and plentiful largemouth bass from Florida's many inland lakes.

[HenryC]

That's news to me.

The one I caught was delicious.

This is from SW Florida...

Snook: A rare seasonal treat that's worth the effort
CHAD GILLIS
11:42 AM, Mar 6, 2008
"Although stone crabs are eaten in large numbers thanks, in part, to commercial fisheries that support restaurants and fish markets, there are few foods more coveted in Southwest Florida than snook."  (read on for a recipe)

http://www.naplesnews.com/community/bonita-banner/snook-rare-seasonal-treat-s-worth-effort

Just Google "snook recipes" ... you'll get plenty of hits

"The taste

"You'd better take that skin off," says Gary Morse with the FWCC. "That's why it's nicknamed the soap fish."

Many a successful angler has landed a snook only to throw it on the grill, skin on, take one taste and then toss it in the garbage. And unlike its status here in Florida, many in the Caribbean consider it inedible."

Now I didn't know that.  My mom, the world's greatest cook, obviously did.