This past weekend I got to fish the dock lights of Stuart, Florida along the Intercoastal Waterway. I love dock light fishing for snook and tarpon. Both fish and a number of other species will sit in the light or just in the shadows outside the light waiting ambush minnows, shrimp, crabs,finger mullet and pilchards that are swept along with the tide into the light or in some cases actually attracted to the light as well. I caught 10-snook on fly not to mention the 5 I lost at the boat or well into the fight and the dozen or so missed strikes. I’ve been fishing dock lights in Florida almost from the day I arrived in the this wonderful state back in the mid 80′s. My first experience with dock light fishing was in Sarasota where we specifically targeted snook. Back then I didn’t fly fish so we used a swimming lure called a Golden Eyes Maverick lure with a chartreuse green back. They are now a collectors item though you can still buy them. The lure imitated a pilchard and the snook couldn’t resist them. The trick was to cast not into the light at first but in the dark water and retrieve the lure along the edge of the light. If nothing happened to keep doing so until you got a strike or keep casting a little more closer to the light till it was swimming through the brightest area. Typically, you could actually see the snook hanging in the light and better yet you could seem them chasing and popping baits as the tide flushed them into the light. We targeted the outgoing tide. During that time I worked weekends as a bouncer for a live music night club and got off work at 2:00am. If the tide was right I go fishing. There were a number of times I fished till dawn and had the fishing to myself. I was much younger then - in my 20′s and could recover from an all nighter much better than I can today.
