Thread: catching sheephead

I saw the great report on the sheephead catch and want to do that myself when I come back into town from hunting this week, but I've never fished for them before. Do you use live shrimp or fresh dead? Which is best? Leader? Fluro or mono? Line test and hook size? Tips and hints are greatly appreciated.

Well, everybody fishes for them a little differently. But here are my ways. If it is calm and very little wind, I will use my six pound test setup on them. I will use no leader, just a little split shot a little ways above the hook, which is a #10 treble. If it is a little windy, I will use my 8# rig, setup with a Carolina rig using a half ounce egg weight 10-20# fluro leader(depending on how picky they are being) with a #10 treble. It it is really windy, I will end up using my king setup with 16# test, a 1 oz egg weight 20# fluro leader and #10 treble. As far as bait, live shrimp, ghost shrimp, or fiddled crabs work. They are very picky so bait must be live. Main thing is be patient. The nibble most of the time. I have found, let them nibble a couple of times. When you finally feel a bit of tension, jerk that sucker as hard as you can. You are going to want to run a slightly heavy drag and jack them up.to the surface basically because they generally want to run under the pier and around pilings, so the sooner you fan get them towards the surface, the better you will be able to control them. They stay at varying depths on different days so some days this will be harder, but that is the joy of it. I hope this helps George.

Thanks, Justin. That will really flatten out my learning curve. Hope to see you there.