Drew Dixon
All those anglers in Florida with the day off for Labor Day Monday can cast lines along Florida’s West and East coasts for a popular fish.
Snook season opens for most of Florida’s Gulf Coast counties beginning Monday. It’s the recreational harvest of the popular fish From the Panhandle to Sarasota Bay area. While the West Coast dominates much of that open-snook season, Florida’s East Coast gets in on the action as well. The state opens that area for snook I the Southeast, Indian River Lagoon area and the Northeast region of the state, according to a news release from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC).
The snook season for the West Coast remains open through Nov. 30. East Coast snook harvesting is open through Dec. 14.
“The management regions are part of the FWC’s holistic approach for managing Florida’s most popular inshore fisheries. This approach uses seven metrics to evaluate the fishery by region, allowing the FWC to be more responsive to local concerns,” the news release said.
Snook is both a fairly large fish and it is a white fish. It’s considered good to eat and delicious, according to FWC officials. Outside of the legal and regulated seasons for recreational harvesting, snook is a protected fish in Florida.
Snook is also considered a challenging fish to land. The fish can grow up to 48 inches long and weigh up to about 50 points. The habitat for snook is generally inshore in the coastal waters in areas that are protected by mangroves or seagrass beds.
Snook begin their lives as males but transform to females. They usually position themselves to be heading against the water flow where they are found.
The FWC legalized recreational harvesting prohibits any commercial harvest and no commercial sales are permitted. The fish must remain in a “whole condition” until the snook is brought to shore. Hook-and-line fishing is the only legal form of fishing for snook during the open season and all participants have to have a permit and recreational fishing license issued by the state.
