Think warm thoughts – sunny, bright, comfortable thoughts. That’s all I keep saying to myself as I sit shivering in New Jersey’s subzero freeze. So my mind went to visions of snook fishing in Florida.

Yesterday, I became green with envy as I saw one of my good buddies post on FB a 34-inch snook he hooked from the jetty pier at Sebastian Inlet, Florida. It got me thinking of productive snook lures to use when working the rock jetties and piers of Florida’s East and West coasts. Number one in my tackle bag is the bucktail. Snook will usually be feeding low in the water column, so use the appropriate weight for what it takes to get down to drift by their noses.

Casting in Redfish Pass off Captiva Island, I’ve connected on snook using anywhere from a ½ to 3-ounce white or chartreuse MagicTail or Andrus bucktail, tipped with a Zoom rubber split tail. Cast out and work the buck low in the water column, close to the jetty rocks and through rips.

Fishing the Port St. Lucie Inlet, I’ve had plenty of luck with the 3-inch DOA CAL in Bayou Tiger and purple/gold good colors on a light 1/2-ounce leadhead or the tried and true 4-inch DOA Shrimp. Both lures are simply twitched off the St. Lucie tumble rocks and docks. Off the walkway at Sebastian Inlet, bucktails reign supreme, but don’t be afraid to toss out Rapala X Raps 14 in Firetiger or work TA Subdarters across the outgoing rips to trick a snook into a bone-jarring topwater strike.

Hot rods to handle snook in the 5 to 15-pound bracket inside inlets and dock passes include a Loomis E6X Inshore 7 foot, and St. Croix Tidemaster 7 foot, rated 10 to 20-pound, but heavier guns are needed when targeting 15 to 30-pound snook on ripping tides near inlets. Go with an 8 to 9 foot medium-heavy action rod rated for 20 to 40 -pound. Match rods with reels such as a 6000 Shimano Saragosa or Okuma Azores Z90S. 50-pound Power Pro braided line gives you an advantage for pulling power and maintaining control, to which a 5 foot top shot of 40 to 50-pound Yo-Zuri TopKnot fluorocarbon leader is tied via uni to uni knot for shock absorption and to prevent cut offs from the sharp gill rakes of a lit-up snook.