Headed for Manasota Key and found the same conditions: fairly calm Gulf of Mexico with rollers breaking on the beach. That stirred things up and made sight-fishing tough.
However, I discovered that the snook had baitfish balled up close to the beach. I'd cast around the baitfish and started catching snook. Later, I got snook over the rocks and I'd cast to them whenever I'd see them on top.
Totals for outing: 19 snook, 4 mangrove snapper.
Largest snook was 26 inches. All were more than 23. Lost one fish right at the beach that took me a good ways into the backing.
All fish were taken on D.T. Special flies.
Into the backing:
Sardine and D.T. Special:
Mangrove snapper:
Typical beach snook:
