Snook in the lights

ole_florida_mike

Capt. Patrick Smith lays out some of the tips, tactics, and tackle that he uses with great success on these beautiful fish that will absolutely tear up your gear and sometimes leave you wondering what just happened. But no matter what, always seem to leave an ear to ear smile on your face: Linesiders On The Darkside: Fly Fishing For Snook At Night

shamalamallama

new into fly fishing and been targeting snook on the lights. this was a helpful blog

noelg11892

I gotta say, although tarpon is my favorite fish to target in general. This is my favorite way to fish, dock light fishing is very exciting, its essentially sight fishing when you wouldnt think you could. I did alot of it in fort myers and its awesome! Plus its not hot!

sparse grey

Thanks for posting. Are you retrieving or allowing the fly to more drift with the current with LITTLE retrieving?

lemaymiami

We do lots and lots of docklights on night trips (when we're not actively targeting small tarpon in bridge shadows -I have three nights booked this week...). In general, we try to toss our gear (flies or lures) up-current -then actively move them into the light (or right on the edges of the light...). Something to remember - at least where we are (between Miami and Miami Beach...) fish in docklights can see you pretty well so our approach is to stay away as far as possible - but still able to reach the fish we can see (by comparison, tarpon in the shadows under bridges will allow you to approach so closely - you can touch one with a rod tip if you want -but we're fishing the tarpon from behind them - never in front....). I tell my anglers that their best bet is the first three casts -after that you could cast a fish in docklights until you wear yourself out without a bite (they know you're there....), so we move from light to light until we score...

Hope this helps, I first learned to fish the urban areas of Biscayne Bay more than forty years ago and it's a lot of fun. By the way, we always try to be respectful of homeowners, keep the noise down, and anything in a docklight is a catch and release proposition (since many dockowners consider the fish at their dock to be pets....). Being polite to dockowners is good policy since all they need to do is turn off that light and you're out of business...