With a very busy weekend on hand I was still able to reserve a small window of time on Sunday morning for some family fishing. The 3 of us did well getting up and out of the house, and we were at the boat ramp at 951 just on the north side of the bridge to Marco Island before 8am. There was a great high flooding tide, yet I was still debating on where to start fishing as we idled down the canal. We only had a few hours to fish, and I couldn’t decide if I wanted to run all the way to the gulf and south for some remote 10,000 Islands fishing, or to stay inside. As we headed to the bridge for a quick fruitless look for bait, I caught a glimpse of a heron catching glass minnows on a shoreline and a nice telltale boil on the same minnows. That made my mind up, we headed to the shoreline and immediately started catching fish on the live shrimp and small lures we were casting. My better half started it off with a nice jack crevalle that was big enough to scream off a little drag. Then the first of a bunch of small snook came aboard.



The bite was on within minutes of the ramp, as we got hits, and caught jacks, snook, and snapper along the entire shoreline. I was casting my favorite small lure and trying to maneuver the boat with the trolling motor in a stiff wind and fast running tide when my lure stopped abruptly and the 20# braided line started screaming off the reel. We knew quickly that it was a big snook, as she jumped and gave that distinctive head shake before she tried to bull her way into the maze of the mangrove shoreline.  When my son saw the first jump he immediately said that’s for Father’s Day dad! With a big grin I turned the trolling motor towards open water, away from the shoreline, and palmed the spool of the 4000 series reel as much as I dared and got the fish stopped. She then proceeded to jump several times for us during a great battle and I was able to lead her to the net fairly quickly where Dawn did a great job of scooping her up.



After a very quick approximate measure and picture, the snook well over 32” only took a few minutes of revival before she let go of my thumb and sped off. The excellent fishing continued and my son was very pleased with a keeper snapper he added to the livewell.



We ran to 2 other spots nearby over the few next hours and continued catching quite a few fish.



The last stop was a bridge near my parents place on Marco that my son requested and loves to fish.



He and mom were able to land another keeper snapper there to add to the cooler, on the very last few of the 60 shrimp we started the day with.