snook on the Mosquito Lagoon

Kicked the skunk out of the boat by landing a scrappy backwater snook on a recent trip with Capt. Mark Wright!

The weather this past week was certainly interesting. Isolated and sometimes violent thunderstorms kept us on our toes. Luckily, we were able to steer clear of the worst of them during our charters. Driving to and from the fishing grounds we got caught in storms more often than not.

Taking a Texas couple on a mid-day charter on Sunday proved uneventful. While I tried to convince the duo to start later in the day and fish until nearly dark, they opted to meet as quickly as they could drive here from the airport. Our 2:30 p.m. starting time was in my opinion the worst case scenario.

Truthfully, I don’t rely on the Solunar predictors which are readily available online. These forecasting tools tell us when game animals and fish will “likely” be active. However, I do often study them and when I realized we were starting our trip an hour after a “major activity” cycle and yet hours away from the next “minor” cycle I mentally prepared myself for a slow outing.

After the trip the clients laughed and reminded me of my warning to them. We all agreed they should have listened to the guide (me)… LOL!

A day of scouting between charters built my confidence for my next trip. Trout eagerly ate topwater plugs and redfish tailed on isolated shorelines with enough depth to cover them.

Thursday I was joined by my most regular client, Tony. He had frequent attacks on the topwater plugs Tony prefers. Tony bowed-up frequently only to lose fish after fish. This on and off pattern was constant with both of his rods and several different lures including soft plastics. Clearly, the fish were eating the lures in a funky manner. Watching snook, trout and redfish all eat Tony’s plugs and then spit them back at him caused some rough, though funny language from us both. Tony did land a snook so we didn’t have to live with the humiliation of being skunked!