(Repost of Florida Today Article of May 23, 2010 by Matt Badolato)
After the icy winter and devastating fish kills in Central Florida, it's nice to know that some big snook survived to be caught another day.
On May 11, Cocoa Beach resident Justin Stumpfhauser was fishing with friend Peter Deeks Jr. of Merritt Island when they came across Stumpfhauser's largest snook to date, a 45-incher.
They began their day near Pineda Causeway at 6 a.m. and rounded up a livewell full of mullet. Deeks, who operates Native Sons Guide Service, knew of a particular stretch of shoreline that had been holding tarpon. "We started the day off soaking live mullet near some mangroves, and we kept hooking into 20-pound tarpon," said Stumpfhauser, who was celebrating his 24th birthday. "But we couldn't land one, so we tried trolling for them."
While slow-trolling a pair of live mullet on 12-pound spinning tackle, the two fishermen hooked into a couple more tarpon but couldn't manage to keep one on. They kept at it, and Stumpfhauser was rewarded with a massive strike.
"She just came up and whacked my mullet," Stumpfhauser said about the big snook. "I thought I had a decent tarpon on, but I knew something was funny when she wasn't jumping."
After a 15-minute fight and a few drag-zinging runs, Stumpfhauser brought the beast of a snook in for a quick photo and released it back into the lagoon. "She was just over 30 pounds, for sure my biggest snook," Stumpfhauser said. "Peter is a heck of a guide; we had the best day of fishing in my life."
The anglers were using very light tackle to be taming big snook. Their leaders were 25-pound test affixed to small black live bait hooks
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