CATCHes of the Day - The Bait Box, Sanibel Island, Florida (239) 472-1618

     During the winter months, I spent a great deal of time on the Internet researching how to fish Florida's beaches and that's how I discovered your web site.
     In July of this year, we decided to vacation on Sanibel. We have never vacationed on the island during July so I did not know what to expect as far as fishing off of the beaches. I figured that the fishing would be tough and it was! For 2 days all I could catch was catfish. I was getting discouraged so I figured I would go up to the Bait Box on Sanibel and ask them for some advice. They told me the best thing to use would be frozen Thread Fin Herring so I bought a half dozen of them and headed for the beach.
     It was just before noon on July 2nd when I put the first Herring on my hook. Although it was hot, the water was calm with no chop and there was a nice breeze. I waded out about waist deep and cast the Herring out as far as possible and let it sink to the bottom. About 5 minutes passed when I felt my line starting to move. Since I use a circle hook, I let the fish run a real long way before I start applying any pressure. When I started "pulling back" is when the real fireworks started. This fish immediately started peeling out line and I mean it was screaming! I had about a 175 yards of 15 lb. test line on my real and about 3/4's of it was gone before I could get the fishes head turned. The fish was a real fighter! I would get about 20 yards in and he would run out 25. It took about 10 minutes before I could start making some real progress and get the fish back to me. As soon as I got the fish to within 30 yards of me, the darn thing took off down the beach in the other direction! The fish took about half of my line out on that last run but I could tell that it was beat. I only had to fight it for about another 5 minutes before I landed this beautiful snook.
     Unfortunately, I did not have a scale to weigh this fish but we did have a tape measure. The fish measured 40" from the lip to the fork of the tail. I did not measure the girth but you can see that it is thick. Just for scale purposes, I am 6'3" tall and weigh 240 lbs.
     Anyway, I thought you would like to see these. My 2 boys are in the pictures. The oldest is Matt and the youngest is Christopher. As you can imagine, they were really excited to see a fish this big!
     Thanks for all of your help at the Bait box!
     Mark Preuss