I recently attended a writer’s event with DOA Lures in Port St. Lucie Florida at the River Palms Cottages where the bite in the St. Lucie River was prolific.

In one morning, I was able to put together a super slam of tarpon, snook, seatrout and redfish. What was the key to success? The simple 3 to 4-inch DOA Shrimp in glo color and black/gray.

Captain Brenton Roberts poled us around the St. Lucie river at sunup to watch for tarpon boils on the glassy water surface, when a DOA shrimp connected with a small 10-pounder. After landing the poon we sped up to the docks off of Jensen Beach to make some pinpoint casts around the pilings. It didn’t take long to score the first snooklet of about 3 pounds, then we put about a dozen more snook up to 5 pounds on deck. The shrimp worked wonders, but after spying mullet schools being worked over, we cast DOA CAL baits in Silver Mullet to the outskirts and promptly got whacked by a multitude of big jack crevalles and eventually a nice schoolie redfish. With only a trout left to go, a DOA CAL was sent out to pull a sweet 16-inch seatrout off a dock piling, completing the super slam.

Light tackle gear was paramount to getting the baits to work properly. The gear to get the shrimp to twitch enticingly and to maintain sensitive contact with the soft baits was a Shimano Terramar Rod TMS-F70M with medium power and medium fast action matched with a 4000 Shimano Stradic reel, spooled with 20 to 30-pound Power Pro line with a 36-inch section of 15-pound section of Seaguar fluorocarbon line tied via uni to uni knot and the lure tied directly with a Homer Rhode Loop Knot. That set up was able to handle the brawn of tarpon head shakes and the finesse of seatrout, all the while giving a fair fight.

The St. Lucie River system put up some good times, and coughed up my first super slam in quite some time. To book a place on the St. Lucie river, check out the cottages at www.riverpalmcottages.com in Jensen Beach.