Jason and I found 2 new (at least to us) places to catch snappers both less than 10 minutes from my door.
Decided to go low tech today. We brought an ultra light trout rod with the reel spooled with #4. I also brought along a 7' M spinning rod in case some bigger cocktails and/or false albies came into play (which in the areas we fished have in the past).
We had orginally planned to go to a spot we've fished in the past at Liberty State Park (about 15 minutes from my door) but on the way I decided to swing by a pier (or at least where the pier used to be) that I fished in the very early 90's before it was washed away in the Perfect Storm. Going to this spot allowed us to have the wind at our backs as opposed to in our face which it would have been if we went to our original destination. Although the pier was gone, we did find a stretch of water that we fished for a bit with Jason taking 2 nice snappers on a 1/8 ounce Kastmaster. I was throwing a 1.5 ounce Krocodile spoon and missed 2 hits from snappers. We saw alot of bait with the occasional school of snappers working them.
Drove to another spot that we had scouted in the past. We fished the mouth of a channel that drained a tidal estuary. Jason pretty much caught snappers at will, as did others by us. Lots of life in this piece of tidal water. Baits in the water were spearing & peanuts, also saw turtles, lots of crabs (they appeared to be green crabs about the size of a quarter), bird life galore (egrets, green herons, terns and sand pipers).
I just sat and watched, taking it all in. Brought back alot of memories of summers of my youth. Something about the simplicity of snapper fishing that is very relaxing and enjoyable.
Small Kastmasters, snapper zappers and small topwater plugs all produced.
Everything was released.
