Thread: Small hooks, small fresh dead shrimp for croakers and whiting

Whiting have small mouths, so it makes sense to use a shrimp-piece that it can take into its mouth all at once. I'm using a #2 circle hook.

The folks around me today that were not being especially succesful were using WAY too big of hooks with WAY too much bait for fish with really small mouths.

Here's what I do: I use a shrimp-piece no longer than one inch. I remove the shell of a fresh-dead shrimp and never fish for whiting/croakers with the tail itself (it just allows the fish to leverage the bait off of your hook). Then, the fish will bite and take in the whole bait. Now here's the difference between using a circle hook and a J-shaped hook - You'll feel a series of taps. If it's a J-shaped hook, set the hook when you detect the bite. If it's a circle hook, just keep the line tight and the fish will hook himself. Start reeling when you see a significant bend in the rod. If you don't catch the fish, stop and let it find the bait again. If there are no more bites, then your bait is probably gone.

Give small hooks and small baits a try with whiting to see if your catch rate improves.

Originally Posted by eym_sirius

Whiting have small mouths, so it makes sense to use a shrimp-piece that it can take into its mouth all at once. I'm using a #2 circle hook.

The folks around me today that were not being especially succesful were using WAY too big of hooks with WAY too much bait for fish with really small mouths.

Here's what I do: I use a shrimp-piece no longer than one inch. I remove the shell of a fresh-dead shrimp and never fish for whiting/croakers with the tail itself (it just allows the fish to leverage the bait off of your hook). Then, the fish will bite and take in the whole bait. Now here's the difference between using a circle hook and a J-shaped hook - You'll feel a series of taps. If it's a J-shaped hook, set the hook when you detect the bite. If it's a circle hook, just keep the line tight and the fish will hook himself. Start reeling when you see a significant bend in the rod. If you don't catch the fish, stop and let it find the bait again. If there are no more bites, then your bait is probably gone.

Give small hooks and small baits a try with whiting to see if your catch rate improves.

Thank you emy, I'm not very smart, so every little tip like the above helps a great deal, I appreciate it.

How about Sheepies, with their small mouth, but they have a zillion teeth in their mouth, would a person use a small but heavy (2X - 4X) hook? Which style of hook seems to work best on Sheepies, J style, wide gap, circle or a wide gap circle? How about the size of bait for Sheepies? Thanks guys!!!

It's interesting that you ask, because Haywire and I were talking about that today! I use a circle hook for sheepshead, but not THAT big (not as big as 4X). I wouldn't use one bigger than 1/0. The exact one that I use is Gamakatsu Octopus Circle. The idea is that a sheepshead will spit it out when he tastes metal. The fish takes the bait and, not feeling a hook, starts to swim off with it. Lift up and you're on! I use very lively live shrimp or TWO fiddler crabs for the reason that I suggested before - The TWO crabs seem to provide more of a feast and they help hide the hook when the sheepshead views them and test-crunches/swims off with the bait. I've used a j-hook before, but again - I'd stay small so that the fish doesn't taste metal too quickly and spit it before you can react or see it and not bite at all.

Thank you, eym. What you said makes sense to me. It could be hard to find live shrimp when we are there this Winter, would you peel the shrimp and just use the tail, or use the whole fresh dead shrimp?
I was thinking of a size 2 or 4 hook, maybe the 4 would be to small???? The 2X & 4X was in reference to the strength of the hook. A heavy 2X hook would be easier for the fish to detect than a thin wire hook but I'm afraid Ol' Shep is just going to crunch the thin wire hooks. What do you think? I use the Gamakatsu Octopus Circle, size 6, hook up here on Walleye, (Haywire take note!!) It's a fantastic hook, it takes the guess work out of when to set the hook. Once I feel him I will give him a little injection, but that's it.
Fly fishing is getting tough up here, but I was able to get out Sunday when the temp hit the upper 30's. That was the first time in about 3 weeks. I'm looking forward to getting down to GS, and be a little more comfortable when I'm fishing and have the pleasure of meeting some of you fine fellows. Anyone else got any ideas? THANKS AGAIN!!!!!

I'm not a local but I had good success using 4X VMC bronze #8 treble hooks baited with a fiddler crabs for sheepshead back in early April. They were biting SMALL live shrimp-which I promptly ran out of and I switched to the fiddlers and seemed to have more hookups. After standing near a former pier-surf-jetty guide several times on the pier and getting my azz handed to me I finally took his advice and started using light mono (8#-10#) test Vanish fluorocarbon I started having a lot more bites on everything I was targeting. It is a little more difficult to horse a fish away from the pilings with the lighter line but I landed all but a couple that I hooked. A size 2 khale hook is more than adequate for whiting, croaker, pompano, and slot reds. Just keep your drag set so you don't break off the bigger ones and get someone to net your fish.

One of the most popular hooks for sheepshead is the #10 treble hook, believe it or not. Hook the live shrimp just under the "horn", or ridge on top of its head. This lightweight hook lets the shrimp swim freely. Yes, I occasionally get a bent or straightened hook, but I get a lot of hookups---there have been a lot of days when I'm hooking them up real regular while getting the stink-eye from anglers using the heavy J-hooks on the theory that you need a heavy hook to keep from getting bite damage. I want to try the little circle hook idea, but the plan is sort of the same---to keep the sheepie from feeling the hook.

Never had much luck with dead bait, except dead ghost shrimp, and even those are better alive. Some days, the sheepies are on fire and will bite dead shrimp, but I'd hate to have to depend on that for fish in the freezer. Also, the fish will often quickly bite your shrimp to kill it and I don't think there's a human alive who has fast enough reflexes to set the hook, but the fish will come back (we hope) and bite a second or third time to eat what it just killed and that's when you get more of a pull than a jerk---then maybe you can hook it up so that it can instantly dive behind a barnacle encrusted piling and cut you off. Helps you improve your vocabulary by inventing new cuss words.

Also, there have been several days the past couple of years when the sheepies went ape over really big live shrimp, sometimes taking several bites to get it in the old mouth. You just never know from one day to the next. And yeah, a real light fluro leader gives you a big advantage. I've gone from no bites with 12# to all I wanted with 10#---go figure.

20-30 years ago I used NOTHING but #4, 6, 8, or 10 Eagle Claw 084 bronze Plain Shank single hooks.
The # 6, 8 & 10 were mostly for sheepshead depending on the size of the shrimp.
Like mentioned earlier:
smaller sized mouth fish = smaller bait = smaller hook = lighter line = lighter combo = MORE BITES ;-)

I luv my small trebles, kahles, circles and Tru-Turns, and each has it's place and time but if I was on a deserted island with only one piece of hardware it would be that Plain Shank!

If I couldn't use live shrimp for sheepshead, I'd use fiddler crabs. If neither of those was available I'd try to find ghost shrimp. I think that if I couldn't find any of those three - I'd fish for something else. I've never heard of anyone catching sheepshead on artificial bait and I've never had much luck using dead shrimp on sheepshead. Only when the sheepshead are biting like crazy will they take a fresh-dead or shrimp piece of MINE. In March/April, I've had them cut a shrimp in half and then come back and hit the half with the hook in it, so I know that they WILL hit a dead one. I just have no confidence that I'd be successful with dead shrimp as my only bait. Maybe someone else can share a success story with dead bait.

Sheepshead story:
Years ago (like 20) I fished the rigs just south of Dauphin Island with a guy and his son in their boat.
Jemisons had no live shrimp tha day and we had to settle for the week old 'bait shrimp'.
You know, the stuff that the heads are falling off of
Anyway, we got 0 bites until I made a drop rig and threaded the shrimp up onto the hook (so as to resemble a ghost shrimp).


We literally filled the box over the next few hours until we ran out of shrimp.
I don't believe they would have bit LIVE shrimp any better that day.
Of course that was late March though.

Small croakers, ground mullet, silver perch, white trout, grunts, pinfish etc. can just as 'picky' some times.
If my bait is being 'pecked' off (and that is the ONLY bites I am getting), I will either move to another spot or rig up using smaller hooks on a lighter lighter rig and line to see what the 'tiddlers' are.
Carazy thing, several times when I've done just that I ended up hooking (and usually catching) some MUCH larger fish in amongst the peewees ;-)