by John Kumiski
"I've got another one, John!" Some anglers love competition. I don't. But when Marcia Foosaner hooked her seventh snook while I was still trying to get my first bite, some less than chivalrous thoughts began sneaking into my consciousness.
All other things being equal, almost everywhere in Florida offers excellent fishing opportunities in September. A particularly attractive option occurs along the east side of the peninsula, where the silver mullet are making their annual migration south along the beaches and through the Indian River Lagoon system. Predators are gorging themselves on silvery tidbits of protein, fattening up for the lean times ahead. All these millions upon millions of mullet, and the predators that feed on them, have to converge someplace, and they do so at the south end of the Indian River Lagoon, right at the St. Lucie Inlet.
Marcia guides here, where the St. Lucie Inlet connects the lagoon to the mighty Atlantic. Strictly from a geographic standpoint, there's a lot going on there. A short distance west of the inlet, the St. Lucie River intersects with the southern Indian River Lagoon. The Intracoastal Waterway runs north and south through this same area, creating the intersecting waterways known locally as "The Crossroads." Flats, cuts, channels, and islands, points and pockets, the inlet with its jetties, a profusion of docks, some bridges for even more fish attracting structure, a strong tidal flow, and lots and lots of bait mean there's superior fish habitat. Lots of snook, lots of big, honking snook, take advantage of this fact. It's one of the best snook spots in the Northern Hemisphere.
Marcia says, "The inlet continues to shoal no matter how many times they dredge it. The south side is deeper and has lots of rocks. It's the DOA graveyard! Sandbars line the north side, with sloughs in between them.
"When you come into the inlet from the ocean, if you continue heading west through the Crossroads, you'll go into the St. Lucie River. If you turn right and head north at the Crossroads, you'll enter the Indian River Lagoon. Just north of the inlet on the lagoon side are the Sailfish Point flats, a known snook haunt, with spoil islands, cuts, and grass flats. Since the hurricanes a lot of the bars have washed out some and the cuts have filled in some, so there's less topography in some places and more in others. The hurricanes changed things."
Marcia went on to say, "The inlet produces fish during the summer because they spawn there. By September that's beginning to wrap up, but then the mullet start showing up and the fishing gets even better. The fish spawn on the full moon. Afterwards they move onto the lagoon's flats looking for forage. Those flats always have a lot of bait on them, and it's pretty apparent when the fish are there because the bait is getting crushed."
I've been fishing on those flats with Marcia when the fish were there. It sounds like St. Bernards are being dropped out of a helicopter. Oh yeah, you can definitely tell when the fish are there.
If you have a boat, some good places to fish include the inside of inlet on the south side, from the "sand pile" (a landscaped mound of dredge spoil from the inlet) down to and past the "Hole in the Wall," a narrow opening to a small, shallow bay. A popular way to do this is to drift on the outgoing tide, casting or jigging a deep running DOA Bait Buster or a TerrorEyz among the plentiful rocks down below. This is the area Marcia referred to as the DOA Graveyard, because so many lures are hung up and lost here. The numbers of big snook that this area produces makes the loss of a few lures a small price to pay, however.
The detached jetty on the south side of the inlet is another great spot. If there's no one there you can use an electric motor to move up and down along the jetty, casting a DOA TerrorEyz all along the rocks. Usually there are fisherman anchored here, though, drifting live baits up near the rocks.
The south jetty itself is always worth some casts, especially along the south side. You may end up spending quite a bit of time here. The beach just south of the south jetty also holds fish. Cast your TerrorEyz right up onto the sand and drag it back into the water. Make sure you have a firm grip on the rod.
Marcia's favorite lures for working in the inlet from a boat include the just mentioned deep running DOA Bait Buster (this lure was designed right here), the DOA TerrorEyz, all the various swim baits, and the Red Tailed Hawk jig, all lures with a single hook. She says, "Some plugs work well here but I don't like anything with three treble hooks on it. All these big fish are to be released and all those hooks just damage the fish too much. Even on my plugs with two sets of trebles I cut the points off of the front hooks at the bend. If you remove the hook completely it changes the action of the bait too much. By just removing the points you still have most of the weight of the hook and the plug still 'works' right. I crimp the barbs down on the remaining hooks. It lets me release with ease those fish that actually swallow that plug.
"I do have favorite colors, of course," she says. "I like white, red and white, brown, brown and tan, and pearl is a particular favorite."
A boat also allows you access to the flats at Sailfish Point and in the Indian River Lagoon. If you want to fish these areas from the boat, the best places are in the deeper cuts. But you want to keep the boat close enough to the flat that you can cast to the edge of it, where the water drops off.
Marcia always prefers to wade these areas, however. "Early in the morning, from dark until about 10 AM, you can see the fish cruising up on the flats. The explosions let you know they're eating. The fish will almost always be with the bait, no matter how shallow the water is. A lot of the time you can sight fish them. You'll see all these little pointy gray tails, and this big rounded yellow thing in the middle of them. So what you basically try to do is to cast to all the bait schools you can. Once the sun gets up pretty high the big fish will drop off the flats into those cuts I mentioned before.
"When I fish the flats I have a fondness for top water baits. When it's real shallow I like a smaller bait, like the shallow running DOA Bait Buster or a MirroLure Top Dog. In deeper water the He Dogs and She Dogs work great.
"It might seem counterintuitive when the fish are clearly chasing mullet, but the DOA Shrimp is the world's greatest bait. You don't have to do anything with it other than hop it or glide it across the grass, either, it's real easy to work it here. The fish, regardless of what they appear to be eating, will almost always take it."
I was up on one of these flats one day with Paul Hobby and Joey Landreneau, all of us tossing DOA Shrimp. Paul and I were catching a variety of fish- crevalle, trout, ladyfish, a small snook here and there. Joey wasn't doing much, until he hollered at us, "I need some help chasing this fish!" We picked him up with Paul's boat and chased down his monster 26 pound snook, which he had gotten on a Glow Shrimp.
Anglers without a boat can't get on those flats, and can't get to the south side of the inlet without a major investment of time and effort, but they can get access to the north side of the inlet. They must be motivated, however, since it requires a 20 minute walk south to the inlet from the closest public parking area at Bathtub Beach. Be sure to walk past the jetty to the inside of the inlet. I walked down there one day with Marcia when she had the morning described in the opening paragraph. She had the mojo going, getting strike after strike while I tried fruitlessly to imitate what she was doing.
Marcia says, "Look for rips in the water where the current runs over a shallow spot and then the bottom drops off. It's usually pretty obvious, you can easily see them. The fish lie in those deeper areas just waiting for bait to wash over. There are several of these types of spots inside the inlet.
"There are also some small piles of rocks inside the inlet, away from the main jetty. These are also areas that require some casting time.
"The snook fishing at this time of year is awesome, awesome, awesome. It's the best place in the world for a fly rodder to go to get a big snook. The concentration of fish is pretty heavy. You're going to catch lots of small ones between 16 to 26 inches, but there are plenty of big ones, too. It doesn't seem to matter what time of day it is, either.
"I always prefer fishing the inlet on an outgoing tide, especially the last two or three hours. I have talked to other people who like incoming water, but I never see them catching fish then. I've gotten skunked enough times on the rising tide to think that it just doesn't work then.
"Whether you're on foot or in a boat, you should be casting your lure up current and working it back with the current. Cast to any little rock piles you see, and any eddies you see, anywhere that a fish or group of fish might hold. It's important that your fly or lure move with the current."
As far as leaders go Marcia suggests using two to three feet of 25 pound fluorocarbon when fishing the flats, but 30 pound when fishing the inlet. "You never know what you might hook in the inlet," She says. "It might weigh a lot more than 25 pounds!" Tarpon have been known to be there, so consider this your warning.
Marcia loves to use a fly rod. She says, "I don't go down to the inlet with anything less than a nine-weight. An eight-weight will work, but I don't think it's enough rod with the currents and everything. We want the fish to live after we release them.
"On the flats I use an eight-weight, or sometimes a seven-weight, rod with a floating line. I use a straight eight foot length of 25 or 30 pound test fluorocarbon for a leader, attached to my fly line with a loop to loop. I don't want a bunch of knots in my leader catching grass and spoiling my presentation.
"In the inlet I'll often use an intermediate or sink-tip line to get the fly down faster. The current is often ripping and the fish don't seem to want to come very far for a fly a lot of the time. I can use a shorter leader, four or five feet long, with these lines.
"My favorite flies on the flats are big poppers and synthetic minnow patterns," she says. "From 1/0 to 3/0 is a good size. Weedguards will help keep the floating grass off of them. We've already talked about my favorite colors, and that goes for my fly selections, too.
"When I'm fly fishing in the inlet it's hard to beat a Sar-Mul-Mac. It imitates so many different baitfish, and the fish eat it like crazy. Regardless of where you are though, carrying some glass minnow patterns, pilchard patterns, and some Clouser Minnows is never a bad idea."
DOA Lures owner Mark Nichols lives in Stuart and designed most of his lures with fishing this area in mind. Of course I had to get his input. "The fish in the inlet are still spawning into September," he says. "Way too many people are killing these fish and eating them. Any fishing done here right now ought to be strictly catch and release, so we have snook next year and the year after that.
"Also, if the summer has been wet the South Florida Water Management District uses the St. Lucie River to dump water from Lake Okeechobee. This dirty freshwater has been a real problem for us here the past couple of years. It degrades the estuary habitat by killing the seagrasses, and it makes fishing really tough.
"If the water is really nasty I prefer to fish the top of the incoming tide, since that's when the water will be the cleanest. If they haven't been dumping freshwater then the outgoing tides are usually best.
"That having been said, a lot of the docks in proximity to the inlet, both on the Indian River Lagoon and in the St. Lucie River and going all the way up to and past the bridges, hold snook in September. During the day I like to use my three inch shrimp and drift it past these docks, almost suspending it in the current. Adding a rattle, I like those made by Woodie's Rattlers, often increases the effectiveness of the bait. On a good dock you'll get one or maybe two good fish, or five or six small ones, depending on how quiet you are and how quickly you can pull the fish out of there. Jigs will also work. Early or late you can use topwaters and have great action, just crushing strikes. You usually won't get as many fish, but the visual aspect makes up for some of that.
"You can also find big, fat slob fish that might be spawning around the Roosevelt Bridge and the Ten Cent Bridge on the St. Lucie River. These fish are typically right down on the bottom and you need something that dredges down there to get them. I like the TerrorEyz, the Swimming Mullet, the CAL jigs, or the deep running Bait Buster. They all work in this situation. You bounce them right on the bottom and wait for the thump.
"Another place you can catch fish this time of year is at the spillways or locks on the C-23 and C-24 canals, where the water comes over the sluices. These are bronze, tannin water fish. Again, if the freshwater is getting dumped it's going to look nasty, but there will still be some fish there."
From all of the above several things should be obvious. One, there are lots of snook in this area in September. Two, they're still spawning and very vulnerable to fishing pressure. So, enjoy your fishing but handle those fish carefully, and please release them so we'll continue to have great fishing in the future!
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This article was written by John Kumiski of John Kumiski Outdoors and Travel. Contact him at his website www.johnkumiski.com or via email at john@spottedtail.com. Copyright John Kumiski.
John Kumiski 's most recent fishing guidebooks are How and Where to Catch Redfish in the Indian River Lagoon System (Argonaut Publishing Company), and Fishing Florida's Space Coast (Argonaut Publishing Company).
John Kumiski's newest book is Redfish on the Fly- A Comprehensive Guide .
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