M y alarm rattles me out of bed a bit earlier this time of year. I want to make sure I do not miss the best bite of the day, so I need to launch while the sky is still black. Better yet, I will start an hour before civil twilight and head out to throw a Heddon Spook Jr. in the dock lights. Here in southwest Florida, snook are my main target in the lights, but there is the chance a tarpon will be lurking in the shadows ready to put on an aerial display once they commit to an offering.
My friends who fish the Panhandle find some of their largest redfish hanging in the lights, while my Hobie teammate, Benton Parrott, out of Mobile Bay, crushes jumbo trout cruising through the lights. A little trial and error or local intel will give you your best options.
As the night sky begins to lighten, it is time to move on toward the targeted flats. Make sure your rod is close at hand, as you need to be ready to bomb away at the first signs of life. This time of year, I really like to key in on sizzling white bait (pilchards), but I definitely won’t pass on a school of frolicking mullet.
I usually carry three identical rod-and-reel combos aboard my Pro Angler. My rods are 7-foot, 3-inch medium-action rods from the TFO Gary Loomis Tactical Series. I pair my rods with Diawa Ballistic 3000 series reels that are spooled with 10-pound Spiderwire Invisibraid. While fluorocarbon leader is my choice in every other application, for topwater I prefer 5 feet of Trilene Big Game monofilament leader. I favor the mono because it acts as a shock absorber and stays a little higher in the water column, making the plug run truer.
This time of year, two of my rods will have topwater plugs tied on. My go-to plug is the Spook Jr. in bone/silver color. The other is the Heddon One Knocker in either bone or foxy mama. While I have supreme confidence that these two plugs provide me the best opportunity to bring a trophy snook or redfish boat side, they need some tweaking right out of the box. On the Spook Jr., I switch out the factory hooks with 4x strong VMC hooks in size 4. The One Knockers need a complete change out, as they are made for freshwater. I replace the split rings with Owner Hyper Wire Split Rings in size 4 and the hooks with Mustad 3Xs in size 2. You may be curious why I would purchase plugs that I need to put more money into, but I have had such great success making them bullet proof that the extra dollar I spend has consistently paid off in fish landed as opposed to the heartbreak of straightened hooks.
I admit that I am a topwater junkie and scoff at those who proclaim the only time to walk the dog is at sunrise and sunset, but shear stubbornness has proven to me that I can sling plugs all day this time of year with great success.
The greatest improvement to my topwater game has been in changing my kayak from a paddle model to a Hobie Mirage drive model. I now split time between my Pro Angler 14 and my Revo 13. I will admit that I have them both souped-up a bit, but if you read this column, you already know that. Mirage drive always keeps the rod in my hands, and basic math tells me the more effective casts I can make will result in more hookups. If you have not used topwater plugs in the past, now is the time to start honing your skills.
Peddle On!