Mississippi isn’t know for snook, however the prized sportfish are starting to point out up in Magnolia State waters. On April 21, Kayak angler Matthew Mitchell set a brand new document for the species, shattering a earlier document from 2025.
Mitchell was fishing within the Gulf someplace close to Pascagoula Bay when he hooked the snook on a Z-Man soft-plastic mullet. In line with the Mississippi Division of Marine Sources, snook are increasing their vary into the Pascagoula Estuary, east of Biloxi Harbor, attributable to warming waters.
Mitchell’s snook weighed 5 kilos, 6.4 ounces and measured 26 inches lengthy. Although small for the species, his new document eclipsed the earlier one—set by Vince Wray in January 2025—by a full 4 kilos, 7 ounces. The big soar in dimension from one document to the subsequent exhibits that snook have gotten extra established in waters off the coast of Mississippi. However they’re nonetheless an especially uncommon and sought-after catch, Mitchell tells F&S.
“I assumed it was good trout or a pleasant crimson fish when it hit,” he says. “It fought so onerous I assumed it was going to interrupt me off. When it got here up, and I noticed that it was snook, I used to be in awe. I couldn’t consider it.”
Mitchell says it’s the primary snook he’s ever caught. “I had plans to journey to Florida to chase them later this summer season,” he says. “However to catch one right here in my residence waters, that’s what desires are fabricated from.
In line with the Worldwide Gamefish Affiliation (IGFA), snook are fast-growing fish, reaching 12-14 inches of their first yr and 24-26 inches by age three. Angler Roman Duenas Marquez broke the IGFA all-tackle world document for Pacific white snook final July with a 60-pound, 13-ounce fish caught on a seashore in Mexico. The reigning all-tackle world document for frequent snook was caught in 1978. It weighed 53 kilos, 10 ounces.
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Mitchell hosts his personal Youtube channel, YaknAdventures, the place he paperwork his coastal excursions catching every thing type redfish to tuna from the seat of his Hobie kayak. In a posts shared to Instagram and Fb, he was brief on particulars concerning the catch. However he did share a photograph of a certificates from MDMR confirming his snook as the brand new Mississippi state document.
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