Thread: Are sheepshead good to eat?

Are sheephead good to eat?
When is the best time and bait to catch them?

Yes, they are. can be tough to clean but worth it. March/April is when they come out to play.

They are tied for first place in my favorite eating fish category. Mid-February to mid-April is the best time for them. They aren't too hard to clean after you've done a couple of hundred.

No, terrible. You can put them all in my cooler.



Yes, as noted, there is a technique to cleaning them:
1. Just scale, gut, remove the gills and bake whole in a 425 degree oven, simple salt & pepper is all you need. Score the larger ones to get them to cook faster.

2. If you fillet, don't try to cut though the scales or rib bones. With the point of your knife, lice the skin along the dorsal fins & then down just behind the gill plates. Then fillet down to & around the ribs. Unless you have a good sharp electric fillet knife, if so, just have at it..

You can catch them year round, but the best time is when they are spawning, as early as February until as late as mid-April, just depends on water temps.

I would also note that just about all the fish we catch on the pier, other than very large black drum & pinfish, are "good to eat".
You just have to know how to cook them.
Even hardtails and ladyfish. And remoras.
Heck you could make canned sardines with LYs if you want.

I'll agree with Carl & Haywire. Heavy rib bones and sharp dorsal fins are the only thing that makes them a little tougher to clean but great tasting firm white meat.

only the black stripes are edible.

A few years ago I talked to two ladies fishing on the mid octi and they were filling their 5 gallon bucket with those hand-sized pinfish.
They said they were good eating, just scale, eviscerate and fry whole (like a bream I guess).
Makes sense though as they are a close cousin to sheepshead (just look at their teeth).

Pinfish are good. I have eaten them. It is just hard to get one big enough to fool with.

I love them. As others have pointed out, a little tough to clean, but worth it. I fillet them and cook them in a cast iron skillet on the grill with a little butter and lemon. I'd almost rather have a sheepshead than a redfish.