With weather like this how can you go wrong? Even with a very slow bite we managed to land 5 slot size snook this past week.
My trips started out at the crack of dawn in search of bait. The bait at the mouth of the little Manatee River is all but gone. On Thursday I spent about 1 ˝ hour throwing my net just getting enough bait for the day. Looks like we will be headed to the Skyway until the bait shows up on the flats (about 3 weeks).
The bite all week long was very slow but consistent. The best bite for me was before 1:00pm after that it slowed to a trickle. Our Snook ranged from 20 inches to 30 inches and we fished winter time spots in the Little Manatee as well as some of the spring time spots near Cockroach Bay.
On Saturday we hooked a Snook that had to be 40 inches, the head of this fish looked like the creature from the black lagoon. I did not have the tackle on board to turn this fish. It headed to the mangrove monster where it set itself free. This fish was still in the River and had not made its way to the passes.
I will be on the water a couple days this week and hope to run south to check out Joe Island and Bishop Harbor. Tides look a little slow but who knows, I’m going anyway.
) 
