Snook at Matagorda

[dnordin]

Had a good day surf fishing from Matagorda beach about 5-6 miles from the entry. Kept 5 nice Trout all around 20" except for a 17". But the interesting thing is that wife caught 2 Snook about 12" so we released them. Anyway it surprised me to catch Snook that far north, I guess the water is a bit warm. It is common to catch them at Matagorda?

[Fishtolive]

Congratulations on the catch, especially the snooks.
Never seen snook around that area.

[Ron Mc]

That is a good day.
Thanks for the report, and congrats to your wife on catching snook - and you for putting her on them.
I have only caught one slot snook, targeting them every winter in Arroyo.
There are 3 snook species in TX, and only one of them even makes the slot.
(not slot, maybe 14" - but they're all a gift)


It's not common to catch snook anywhere, even when you see them loitering on your dock piles.
They like slopes, pilings, and especially, current moving bait. Your best bet is first and last light.
Catching them in the surf, they were likely moving up the coast with the summer heat.

[dnordin]

I agree with you, the Snooks she caught were probably the "Mexican Snook" TPWD term not mine, which typically don't get to slot size but they are chunkier. She said they were appeared to be hanging under Sargssso weed beds, so she presented the bait at the edges of the saragasso ball and caught 2 in 15 mins. She caught a 20" speck right after that as well.

[Ron Mc]

Whenever the topic comes up, I also mention 9/4/21, when we got into stacked snook at the Aransas Bay side of an Estes cut - first light, and a strong tide fall.

[junkyard chihuahua]

I caught one in a cast net at Matty. I was trying to catch some mullet at the start of the new jetty. I threw the net into a school of finger sized mullet and there was about a 12" snook that came up with them!

[karstopo]

My friend caught an 18” snook maybe 3 months ago in a marsh, I saw his photo and know the precise location, this in Surfside. He’s sort of a snook whisperer as he has caught several (I’ve seen the other photos and know the places) up to 30” in Brazoria county. I saw several large snook pre-freeze and had two 28-30” fish follow a foot behind a fly right up to my kayak in clear water.

Snook, including common snook, do get this far north and I believe, there’s strong evidence, that there are some thermal refuges, relatively warm water, coming out from the chemical plants here that are helpful to snook in potentially lethal cold weather conditions above and beyond whatever deeper water natural refuges snook can manage to find to weather freeze events.

All the snook I have heard about, though, were not caught around the chemical plants, but scattered around. Another friend that fishes the East Matagorda around the sargent area has caught several snook in that general area, but he hasn’t fished as much in recent years.

One of these years I hope to check the snook box from home waters and even better if it is with the buggy whip. I made a what I thought was a very good cast to a sighted snook near the surface, but just as the fish was making its move to attack, my fly caught a bit of floating debris and ruined the presentation. I might have had a quality snook on briefly, but was fishing relatively light tippet and something, extra sharp gill rakers, parted the line early in the fight and a trick of the lighting, sun glinting or dazzling, prevented me from seeing what exactly happened. This happened in same area and on same day I saw my other snook.

The nature of many of the detrimental to snook in Texas freeze events tend to be just about as bad mid coast as they do up here. In other words, I don’t see Matagorda or Brazoria county areas so strikingly less or more hospitable to snook as many areas closer to CC and Rockport. I do believe the LLM, Brownsville area is better snook water than what the rest of Texas might have.