Steve Huff on Snook

Guide extraordinaire Steve Huff spoke to a standing-room-only audience at the IGFA in Dania Beach, Florida yesterday, sharing some tremendous insights gathered during more than four decades of fishing south Florida. About snook — a fish he likes catching more than any other — he said, “Unlike permit, they play fair. If you put the fly in front of them and you do everything right, they’ll sometimes eat the fly, as long as they are not in super-clear water and they haven’t noticed you yet. I like the low incoming tide above all. It seems to be the time when they’ll eat just about anything.”
Some other Huff snook tips:
— Don’t use anything less than a 50# shock tippet, and it doesn’t need to be Fluorocarbon (Steve doesn’t use Fluorocarbon because it makes the flies sink to fast and he hasn’t noticed a difference in the number of hookups).
— “Fishing for snook is the only time I recommend throwing the fly beyond the fish: 12-15 inches beyond and in front seems to work best.”
— Always use a loop knot to tie on the fly — it makes the fly move more naturally.
By the way, Steve, who still runs 4 miles a day, often after getting up at 5:00 AM to go fishing, stopped reading fishing magazines and watching fishing on television years ago. “I don’t know what it has to do with fishing,” he says.