# Snook at st. kitts



## wyld3man

I took a trip to St. Kitts and Nevis after Christmas with the wife for a week. I did a little research on the fishing in the area and found a couple old reports of Tarpon being in the multiple salt ponds on the island and yellow tail snapper being close enough to shore to reach with a good spinning setup. So I packed my 9wt fly rod and a 8ft travel spinning rod to see if I could catch a few fish. When we arrived I talked to the locals and was told that the ponds did not have any fish in them and the snapper were to far out. I then contacted a charter boat CPT. but they were all booked up (apparently there are only 5 or 6 on the whole island). The next day we went snorkling off a boat that anchored up about 100ft from the beach (it's a volcanic island so it drops off fast to rocky bottom) we were swimming around and I spotted multiple yellow tail in about 30ft of water. Once we were done I saw that this spot was in casting distance but the weight needed to reach it would end up getting stuck on all the rocks. I would also need to break some brush to get there from the road. Later the next day I noticed that the golf course across the street had multiple ponds so I asked this cab driver that parks next to it daily if he ever saw anybody fishing in them. He said he did but mostly tourist because not many locals have rods or reels. I found out later that they wrap mono around a PVC pipe tie a big nut to it for weight and use hand made hooks. The off shore guys spear fish and some use cast nets. It all started making sense, the locals are not use to our methods of being able to cast a line far from shore or even a pond and that's why I got funny looks when I asked about the fishing. The following day I took my fly rod to the golf course I'm search of tarpon. I reached the first pond being as sneaky as possible and noticed the tell tail v shaped wake of fish swimming. I tied up a orange tarpon screamer and began to see what I could catch. I casted my line out about 20 times with no luck and was getting frustrated when the bite turned on. I saw some jumpers and dorsal fins breaking the surface but they did not look like tarpon. A few moments later as I was stripping my line something took my fly and ran with it. A short battle and had a snook on the putting green. I continued to fish for a couple more hours with no luck. I had multiple 20-30# snook follow the fly to within 3 ft of the shore but they would just stare at it. I changed flys multiple times and found one that seemed to work as I had 3 of them take it but all got off within 10-15 seconds. It was a small trout fly with small hook. I think the same pattern with a larger hook would have sealed the deal. I think we will head back next year so I plan on bringing a fly like that and a spear gun with mask and fins. Oh I did find a pile of rocks to fish on the Caribbean side and was catching fish that looked like the belong in a tropical aquarium. I was using shrimp scented fish bites that I bought at bass pro before I left.

Here is a pic


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## Fielro

Golf course ponds are one of my favorite places to fish


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