Snook Spiking

(click image for detail)

 

(L) Captain Tony Petrella (R) Kevin Cooke- Shop Manager
 
From the Sarasota Observer February 24, 2006 

Snook Spiking
Anglers Revel in Area Snook Boom  

By Kevin J. Allen
Associate Editor 

"We're seeing more snook than before. Whatever it is, we're loving it." 

Captain Tony Petrella isn't sure exactly what has caused the steady increase over the last five years in the area snook population, but he's happy for the spike.

"We're seeing more snook than ever before,"said Petrella, who owns Nokomis-based Tight Loops Fly Fishing. "Whatever it is, we're loving it."
Petrella leads between three to five fishing trips per week. One of his most popular expeditions is a guided, nighttime snook fishing trip along the Intracoastal Waterway.

The rise in the snook population has increased Petrella's bookings. But as continued residential development brings more anglers to Southwest Florida, some scientists worry that current conservation efforts won't be enough to maintain a healthy snook population.

For now, the booming snook population is showing no signs of slowing down.

Anglers are seeing more snook near lighted boat docks than ever before, Petrella said. Some of his expeditions have netted as many as 50 snook in four to five hour period.

"It gets goofy,"said Petrella, who has guided expeditions where it seemed like every other cast resulted in a catch.

Although snook can be caught with a rod and reel with live bait, Petrella prefers to fly fish for them. The custom flies Petrella uses are small, replicating glass minnows and shrimp.

Casey Key Anglers and Outfitters, at 820 Albee Road, Nokomis, is one of only a few stores in Southwest Florida that specializes in fly-fishing gear. Owner Kevin Cooke said that the increase in snook fishing has helped his business thrive in its first year, while much of the area sport fishing industry has suffered due to red tide.

Cooke, an experienced angler himself, facilitates many of Petrella's bookings.

"Any day on the water is a good day," said Cooke, who has been fishing Florida waters since he was a child. He considers snook one of the most fun of all the species to catch because of their wily and aggressive nature.

Despite all the effort that goes into catching them, state regulations stipulate that only one snook may be kept per day by a given angler. It must be between 27 and 34 inches in length to be deemed "a keeper." Any fish larger than 34 inches or smaller than 27 inches must be released back into the wild. Snook larger than 34 inches are prime for breeding, Petrella said.

Petrella has been fishing the Intracoastal Waterway for more than ten years. He has been guiding trips for five of those years.

Petrella is everything one would expect from a charter fish boat captain. He is pleasantly gruff, notably patient and loaded with fascinating stories.

A former sports writer for the Atlanta Constitution and Palm Beach Post, Petrella covered professional football and hockey. Before venturing out as a charter captain, he spent more than 20 years as a manufacturer representative in the fly-fishing industry.

He possesses an intimate knowledge of Sarasota County's coastal fishing hot spots - from which set of mangroves provide the best habitat for a particular species, to how individual dock lights attract the most shrimp and minnows.

"The tides and the wind directly dictate where I go on a given night," said Petrella, who guides fishing expeditions in Michigan six months out of the year.

Area anglers affectionately refer to the area from Venice Avenue north to Blackburn Point Bridge as Snook Alley. Petrella concentrates much of his angling efforts in Snook Alley.

But the area wasn't always a hotbed for snook. Ken Leber, Director of the Center for Fisheries Enhancement at Mote Marine, has been leading restocking efforts for snook in conjunction with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission since July 1996.

Leber said that over-fishing of the species and destruction of mangrove and seagrass habitats by waterfront development have caused a drastic decrease in snook numbers. Snook tend to hide from their predators in mangroves and seagrasses, thus ensuring the survival of their youth.

He credits the rigorous state regulations as the major factor in the rise in snook numbers. However, he does not discount the significance of scientific restocking efforts, even though they haven't brought increased snook numbers.

Over the past ten years, Mote has released over 50,000 tagged, hatchery-reared snook into Little Sarasota Bay. Some were released into the bays. Many of the fish were released in North and South creeks in Osprey.

The hatchery-reared snook were tagged with a metal wire, barely a millimeter long, which identifies that fish's release strategy. Partnering with the Snook Foundation, a non-profit organization founded by William R. Mote, Leber and his team are able to track the snook and record data that gives them valuable clues to effectively repopulate the species.

The scientists have learned that by caging the fish for three days within the habitat, they can double the survival rate of the snook. They also increased the survival rate ten-fold by releasing the hatchery snook upstream in the creeks, rather than in the bays and estuaries.

"The backside of the barrier islands," said Leber, "although it looks like great snook habitat, is only great habitat for the adults. The babies perish there."
Leber credits state regulations as the major factor in the increased snook numbers on Florida's west coast. On the east coast, where anglers can catch up to two snook per day, populations continue to decline.

Though scientific restocking efforts have only increased snook populations by one to three percent thus far, Leber said that their repopulation efforts have worked at all is the most important fact. The methods developed by Mote could be critical maintaining snook population in the future.

"We obtained promising results by just releasing 50,000,"he said. "Imagine if we were able to release 100,000 or more."
Leber said Mote's restocking project is an innovative emergency response program. It is one of the first success stories in marine-life repopulation.

Their work has come at an opportune time. The need to maintain snook population is a race against the influx of people moving to Florida.

"We can't keep going at the rate we are and expect to keep taking a fish a day," Leber said. "Pretty soon, the population that is fishing these animals is going to double, triple and quadruple. So, if we're taking one a day, that number is going to quadruple eventually."
But Leber thinks that if he and his team can learn to control the effects of stocking technology, they may be able to bring snook to double or triple its abundance in the areas where it is over-fished. By increasing the amount of hatchery-reared fish they release into the wild, Leber thinks the populations can increase exponentially.

Snook are regarded as unpredictable- one of the trickiest species to catch. On a given night, one could feasibly cast his fly into snook-infested waters over and over with lackluster results.

Petrella explained after a recent, disappointing outing, "Like I said, we're seeing more snook than ever before. I didn't say we were always catching more."


For more information about Petrella's guided Tight Loops Fly Fishing expeditions, visit www.caseykeyanglersandoutfitters.com or call 483-1115.