The sheepshead is among the tastiest fish around, they fight great, and in many areas at many times of the year they’re quite plentiful. Added bonus: since they stick so close to structure like rocks and pilings they’re often available to all sorts of anglers, be they on a boat, kayak, or fishing from shore or a pier. The next time you decide to go sheep wrangling, be sure to remember these five critical tips.
- In areas where there are lots of small bait-stealers, stick with hard crab baits. Yes, sheepshead do love eating shrimp, but so does everything else and often your baits will get pecked away before a “real” fish finds it. Meanwhile, most small fish won’t try to break through the crab’s hard shell. To a sheepshead, however, that shell is no deterrent at all.
- Use short, stout hooks that can sink into the sheepshead’s toothy, bony mouth. When you bait up be sure the hook point is fully exposed, so you can punch it through at the first hint of a bite.
- Use heavy leader and stout gear that allows you to force the fish away from the structure early in the battle. If you let the fish go where it wants there’s a good chance it’ll drag your line across barnacles and rocks, so getting it away from the snaggy stuff right from the start is critical.
- Target sheepshead during slow or slack water. Most fish feed best in a forcefully moving current, but the sheepshead often bite darn well even during slack water. This allows you to drop your bait within inches of the structure, which is generally where their focus is.
- Constantly vary depth until you start getting bites. Sheepshead will sometimes be just five feet down circling a piling, but just as often they may be 10 feet down, 15, or 20. You just never know until you get a bite. But once you do get one you’ll likely get more at the exact same depth.