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Mitchell Rusk rolls out of bed with tousled blonde hair and big blue eyes, saunters to the lanai, grabs his fishing pole and begins his day on his backyard dock between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m., depending on the time of sunrise.

He’s out fishing as late as sunset. He’s 5 years old and he’s been doing this for three years.

Mitchell just started kindergarten, which cuts into his fishing a little bit these days, but he says he doesn’t mind. He likes school.

Known to some as one of Collier County’s youngest fisherman, he learned how to tie his fishing hooks and leaders before learning to tie his shoes.

He caught his first fish when he was 2, beating his brother Tyler, now 16, who caught his first fish at age 4.

“Mine was bigger too,” Mitch adds, his eyes widened as he smiles.

Mitch’s sister, Brandi, 19, recalls going to a bait and tackle store with her youngest brother a couple years ago when he was either 2 or 3 years old.

“A guy asked where Mitch usually fished and Mitch replied, ‘in my dad’s backyard canal. It’s brackish water.’ To that the man said, ‘wow, I’ve never heard a kid as young as him use the term brackish.’”

Fishing runs in the Rusk family. Brandi too caught her first fish years before she started school. Their father, Kenny, 45, said his nickname is “Snook Man.”

If dad is known as Snook Man, it won’t be long before people are calling Mitch, Snook Boy.

Both father and son are relatively quiet and soft-spoken until you get them on their favorite topic, fishing.

“Dad wouldn’t even talk to you until you could hold a fishing pole,” Brandi said.

Snook season began at midnight Sept. 1. Tropical storm Fay’s effects on the winds and Gulf’s waves, delayed the Rusk’s first fishing trip of the season.

The Golden Gate family usually rents a home near the Snook Inn on Labor Day weekend for what mom, Deanne Tyler, calls a “staycation” just a few miles from home.

Although the family delayed the trip due to weather, on the very next weekend they hauled their boat down to the SR 951 boat ramp near Isles of Capri. They were eagerly awaiting their first chance to catch snook in the past four months.

Mom is the only one in the family who isn’t too much into fishing, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t into fish. As famous in the neighborhood as Kenny is for his snook fishing and Mitch is for his early skills, Deanne is famous for her tasty fish fries.

The family said it would be impossible to count how many fish Mitchell has caught. But dad says he knows Mitchell caught at least one thing — “snook fever.”

Before snook season, Mitch was happy catching tilapia, bass and various cichlids off his dock from sunrise to sunset nearly everyday. He also enjoys catching mackerel, mullet and snapper among others, he said.

Mitch runs alongside the canal eyeing the fish he wants. It’s no passive sport for him.

He assists his father in catching all the bait fish the two could need. Mitch has a bait tank of his own on the lanai and a holding tank off the dock to hold fish in.

Mitch caught several ballywhoo and needle fish from the Bayshore area and off the Marco boat ramp preparing for their first snook outing in the Caxambas Pass area. He already caught four tilapias from the canal earlier in the same day.

Kenny said each bait fish is what leads to that golden snook, and as he says this, Mitch is looking up at dad, hanging on to every word he has to say.

Kenny says he doesn’t find tilapia or bass great for eating.

“I still filet one every once in a while just to satisfy his needs,” Kenny said as he cleans a snook on the family’s old, crooked but sturdy dock.

While Mitch said he would like to be able to clean his own fish, that’s where Mom and Dad draw the line.

“He’s not holding a knife at 5,” she says, showing the extremely sharp, thin blade of the Rapala knife.

After a day of being kept on ice, Kenny cleaned up the three snook the father and two-son team caught on their evening fishing trip as well as the eight pound tilapia Mitch caught earlier.

They caught a 29-inch, 30-inch and 31-inch snook, all within this year’s legal snook size limit of 28 to 33 inches tip to tail.

“It’s getting to be a tough mark to hit,” Kenny says of the five inch span.

The challenge adds to the sport, which is not completely unlike hunting.

The family goes out after sunset, particularly in the Caxambas area looking for houses with lights on to attract the snook.

Not just any 5-year-old could practice the silence necessary to sneak up on a snook, Kenny says.

Mitch’s fishing success comes after a lot of practice in his relatively short life thus far. With no exaggeration, Mitch easily has 5,000 hours of fishing under his belt already, his family estimates.

He’s often asked to show other kids in the neighborhood how to fish and he’s been successful as a young teacher as well.

This summer he taught a family friend, Jadyn, 5, and she caught the first fish of her young life after less than an hour of fishing with Mitch in the canal behind the house.

Her very first catch however wasn’t the fish, but rather a clump of weeds.

“I can tie a hook into a worm and make it weedless,” he says.

Catching that the term weedless is new to his young friend, he explains by showing her how.

He ties the line, tucking her hook into the worm.

“See now you won’t catch weeds,” he says.