Snapper Fishing!

 
 As a child I used to catch snappers by the dozen at the local dock.  Fast forward 20  years later and I still like catching these fish at the local dock.  Far removed from the romantic image of catching stripers in the surf with a big flat wing or a wooden plug on a foggy morning, snapper fishing offers the angler an easy target.  Snappers are young of the year bluefish.  They range from 4-9 inches long depending on how early they hatched(or spawned?).  The good news is they are every bit as aggressive as their parents.  They can be found terrorizing the bait in just about every marina along the coast from late July through late September.



  Last night before my birthday party Jan D gave me a call and asked about going out for some snapper blues.  30 minutes later we arrived at a local productive snapper fishing location.  Snapper fishing requires some of the simplest tackle in all of saltwater fishing.  There is the Snapper Popper, which is a foam popper and a small kastmaster or surgical tube 3 feet behind it.  Trout sized spoons, like the side winder, super duper,  and kastmaster. And small Peaces of cut bait under a bobber.  Yesterday we started fishing with the snapper poppers with no luck, however, we switched over to little tins and cleaned house. After an hour we had 15 snappers together which was enough for me to make dinner.

    One observation i made was several of the snappers had wounds on them.  Back in august I noticed the bigger fish were feeding on these guys.  I tied a bunch of flies to look like then and had good results.  My thoughts were confirmed yesterday by the teeth marks in a few fish.

After

   I took my baby blues home and fillet them.  They are small fish so it is tedious work, but i hate digging through bones.  For you freshwater guys snappers are similar in size to small yellow perch and the same effort is required to fillet them.  I was rewarded with a small pile of very tasty fillets.  I simply rolled them in Italian bread crumbs and fried them.  For those of you who have never tried these fish they have a very mild flavor and they taste like More!

   Again I know snapper fishing is not the be all and end all of fishing nor is it glamorous in anyway, however, it is fishing.  Give these guys a shot you still have a few weeks left before they start migrating.

Snapper Blues found in the stomach of an adult bluefish back in August