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

Thank you fellows for all of the insight, it will be printed and filed in my salt water fishing techniques folder along with the many other informative treads from this forum. Can you imagine all of the years of fishing experience that this forum represents? I have gained more knowledge from monitoring this forum the past few months than I have fishing the Gulf in the Winter the past 4 years. I have made many mistakes during that time, the biggest one, being refreezing my dead shrimp many times and then trying to catch a fish on them. How stupid can that be? A big waste of time and effort. I did catch some fish but they must have been the dumb, hungry ones.

Our youngest son is home for Thanksgiving, he lives in Fenton, MO. next to Furgerson, MO. and he has a different perspective of what is happening down there than what we see on T.V. It's mostly colored shooting colored, but one colored shot a white cop, we didn't hear anything about that. There has always been 3 - 4 murders a day but now there 4 - 5 murders a day, mostly colored. He thinks the owners of the businesses are burning down their own stores for insurance purposes. One man's opinion. Anyway, you guys have a HAPPY THANKSGIVING, and thank God for His blessings. Tight Lines and Good Catching. Thanks a bunch!!!!

Originally Posted by Pier#r

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 ;-)

A GOOD technique for my folder, thanks #er.

So I went to "Fresh Market" on HWY 59 this morning for live shrimp. They had none, so I settled for "fresh dead". I'm sure that it's just a "definition discrepancy", but my idea of fresh is that the shrimp's demise would be in tomorrow's obituaries, not yesterday's!

Yepper, the "freshest" dead are those you dispatch yerself right before putting on a hook ;-)

...being said, I have had VERY good luck by freezing my leftover live shrimp in a bait cup or quart freezer Ziplock bag in the same water they came in.
NEVER add salt (suks the 'juices' out) or freeze with no water (thus the term 'freeze dried').

'Live-frozen' shrimp beats '2 day-old' anytime ;-)

I think everyone on the forum is correct. I've had good luck fishing sheepies and have always used a #10, 4X treble with great results. I've used live shrimp and fiddler crabs. Some days they go after the shrimp and won't touch a crab, others the eat the hell out of the fiddlers and not so much on the shrimp. I don't use ghost shrimp because I'm too lazy to get up and wade in the water, but have seen other regulars use them with success. Usually, from my perspective, ghosties always work better, but are tough to keep hooked because they're so soft. And yes, I keep an eye on the hook. Sometimes I can use the same hook for numerous fish, other times it will bend and crush with just one fish. Like Wire says, I have dozens of hooks and it is nothing to tie on another treble if I can't straighten it.

Like all y'all, I've learned to fine tune the above technique over the years, learning from all the old time regulars and this technique works.

There was a god bite of sheepies last week and I loaded up, but none in the last couple days. I'm sure they'll be back soon...

I was in Academy in south Birmingham last week and they had a few boxes of VMC salt water extra strong size #8 treble hooks. This is the very hook that I used with great success last month when I was at the coast so I felt very fortunate to buy several boxes of 20 hooks each for a clearance price of $.98 each. I would recommend these to anyone and yes I also use a light weight flouracarbon leader for most of my fishing.

That's the hook I use for sheepshead and specs. I hook the fiddler crab through the top of the shell with one barb and the other two just look like an extra pair of legs.

Originally Posted by chillinfish

That's the hook I use for sheepshead and specs. I hook the fiddler crab through the top of the shell with one barb and the other two just look like an extra pair of legs.

Thank you Chillin, that sounds like a good idea. Can Sheepshead count? How is the young Fella doing with his Jujitsu?

hey I'm a sucker for a nice pair of legs so why wouldn't it work on a rutting fish?

Heres how I hook mine. Size 6 live bait hook or plan shank J. Color don't matter. 1/4oz split shot and 12lb mono.