Hard-plastic sinking plugs are another good choice.

As the weather warms, snook move downriver to the open water of Charlotte Harbor.

An afternoon outgoing tide is probably the best scenario for the upper river, Winters explained. “The sun tends to warm the north bank of the river, which can get the snook up tight to the shoreline. If you don’t have that, they sometimes stay in the deeper holes on the bends, but a jig will reach them.”

As spring approaches, Winters moves down toward the rivermouth—since that is what a lot of the snook are doing—and his next key area is around the U.S. 41 bridge.

“The bridge is almost the dividing line between fresh and salt water,” he explained, “and here the river starts to open up a bit. You also start to see some side creeks, mangrove islands, and there is a good oyster bar at the bridge that holds tarpon, snook, reds and trout in the winter. Warm Mineral Springs Creek flows in just above the bridge, and that is 72-degree water. That area can hold fish all winter.”

Anglers often overlook the extensive system of manmade canals just downstream of the bridge. Dredged to varying depths, the deeper holes—or any large dock next to a hole—can hold snook, reds, trout and a bunch of 5- to 10-pound tarpon from January through February. Winters has had some very good guide days (including snook over 20 pounds) doing nothing more than probing those deeper canal holes and docks, with jigs, jerkbaits, and—on warm, overcast days—even topwater plugs.

While the area above the U.S. 41 bridge gets the nod in December and January, a warmup in February has Winters heading to the rivermouth. And, if he has the right tide, his first stop is invariably the El Jobean Bridge on State Road 776.

“This is a fish magnet once the water starts to warm towards spring,” he said. “You’ve got snook, big trout, reds, sheepshead, mangrove snapper, and you’ll also get tarpon and cobia at times.”

The right tide is the last two hours of the ebb and the first two hours of the flood. Winters uses this lower current period to move the boat along the upcurrent side of the bridge and drop a 1⁄ 4-ounce jig tight to the pilings.

If Winters misses the “bridge tide” and has incoming water, that’s not so bad. He just heads for the shallow maze of mangrove-lined bays around Hog Island, the Myakka Cutoff and Tippecanoe Bay. Most of these areas are shallow mud and oyster flats in one to three feet of water. When the weather warms in mid-February through April, they have a lot going for them.

“An incoming tide brings in baitfish, and warmer water from the Harbor,” Winters points out.

Combine rapidly warming water with an influx of baitfish and things start to happen. In fact, on my last trip with Capt. Winters, we exited the El Jobean Bridge with a 61-degree water temperature, and an hour later found 66 degrees in a shallow bay not more than a mile from the bridge. Thank you, incoming tide!

Snook were crashing our swimming jigs like jack crevalle on a midsummer feeding frenzy, and a few serious “slot reds” joined the party.

FS