<img src="http://www.evergladesangler.com/portal/modules/My_eGallery/gallery/photography/henley1/Henleysnook1.jpg" align="left">I walked the Naples beach last evening with hopes of catching a snook, and was able to do just that. I usually try to fish the beach with my fly rod, but the last couple of evenings that I have tried, I was greeted by a fairly stiff sea breeze and dirty water. This time I came armed with an ultra light spin rod and an 1/8 ounce brown skimmer jig. As luck would have it, there wasn't a breath of wind and the water was pretty clean. As I worked my way down to Gordon Pass, I saw two good sized jacks charge the beach out of the corner of my eye. I quickly un-hooked the jig from the rod and made a cast which resulted in an instant take, but the hook pulled as quickly as the take had come
I kept working my way down the beach until some snook started to show themselves, so naturally I stopped! I presented my jig to a fish, but instead of hopping it along the bottom, I just slowly lifted the rod to move the jig without bringing it off of the bottom. I watched the fish come over to it, and when the jig stopped moving I set the hook. The take was almost imperceptible, and had it not been for the 10# power pro line I was using, I may have never felt the fish at all. I threw to another fish a couple of minutes later, and repeated the 'jig drag'. When the jig stopped, I set the hook and came tight with another fish, but quickly broke him off When I broke the fish off, he took my only jig so I was done for the night, but I did learn that the fish were wanting a very subtle presentation. As I look back on some of my past beach trips, I would have been more successful if I had used that subtle presentation. I hope that this helps some of you out, and remember this applies to the fly also...

Fish On
Henley