Navarre beach mangroves
 

Just returned from a family beach trip in Navarre. I bankfish that bridge coming onto the island. I was only able to catch one snapper. Some of them I can see just sitting there in that clear water. I was using frozen shrimp and castnetting for live bait. It's almost like they could tell the fish was on a hook even though it was alive. They would just watch the pinfish tear apart my bait and as soon as it was free of the hook the snapper would come in and snatch it up. I tried dragging the bottom with a jighead, tried Carolina rig, and under a cork. Tried many different hooks and tried vudu shrimp. I threw everything I had at them. Maybe a super small bream hook might have worked idk. I caught remoras, sting rays, giant ladyfish, and a couple fish that looked like a giant tadpole. Something bit my pinfish in half but it wasn't the hooked half. I really wanted to catch the snapper but I was literally just watching them look at my bait until it was off the hook. Any suggestions y'all have on how to get them. I'd like to go more prepared next time.

Mangroves have super large eyes. U have to use super small dia. Floro. 20-40# and hide ur hook inside ur bait. We use 40-50# floro offshore with a small hook, 5/0- 3/0. We use live croakers or dead bait, but hide hook well in dead bait.

In clear water it is much more difficult to catch mangroves. When my family had a home in the lower Keys we would catch the shallow water mangroves with live shrimp on a small live bait hook....NO LEADER.....just 6-10lb test (these are not the 5+ lb Louisana mangroves mind you) You have to free line the live shrimp and it has to swim free with ZERO tight lining. Works like a charm. Trick is to get live shrimp in that neck of the woods. We could get them just by the house on Cudjoe Key and elsewhere in the lower keys but I'm not sure about the panhandle.

Yeah these weren't big
Barely legal
Y'all are right. I could have tried those things. Smaller test or fluorocarbon would have worked. Hiding a smaller hook in the bait may have worked too. Ugh thought I was a better fisherman than that. Didn't even think of fluorocarbon lol. Thanks guys. I'll get them next time. Kinda makes me wanna go back this weekend to prove to myself I can do it now but finances aren't there for another vacation.

Forget the fluorocarbon leader, or any leader for that matter, in water that clear. The lack of suppleness and flexibility will impart an unatural motion to live shrimp and reduce or eliminate the bite. I speak from many years of experience catching mangroves in the Keys.

Mangroves are funny fish
I remember one time at the rigs in gulf shores we were catching mangroves on vudu shrimp when they wouldn't even bite a fresh shrimp
It was so weird