Plentiful, widespread and pugnacious, toothy powerhouses can deliver magnificent sport on light tackle, but often go ignored by anglers.
“Sheepshead are one of the most underrated fish in saltwater,” said Robert Brodie with Team Brodie Charters (228-392-7660, teambrodiecharters.com) in Biloxi, Miss. “Sheepshead were considered trash fish for many years, but the meat is delicious baked, grilled or fried. We’ve caught sheepshead exceeding 10 pounds. Sheepshead are very common in many areas.”
The fall offers a wonderful time to catch big sheepshead. As water cools, sheepshead gather in large groups around hard structures. They “feed up” to prepare for the coming winter before heading offshore to spawn.
“In the fall, it’s not a challenge to catch sheepshead,” said Daryl Carpenter with Reel Screamers Guide Service (225-937-6288, www.reelscreamers.com) that runs out of Grand Isle. “When the water temperature starts dropping, sheepshead gang up on the platforms, oyster reefs and artificial reefs. We can catch them all day in the right spot.”
Best baits
With buck-toothed mouths set in powerful jaws and incisor-like front teeth, sheepshead can easily shear barnacles off pilings, bite through crab shells and mangle tackle. They primarily feed upon barnacles, shrimp and small crabs, but the omnivorous fish also eat clams and other morsels. They occasionally grab live minnows, cut fish or squid. They even eat vegetation growing on pilings, jetty rocks and other structures.
“Live shrimp is my bait of choice,” said Kenny Kreeger with Lake Pontchartrain Charters (985-643-2944, www.lakepontchartraincharters.com) in Slidell. “I prefer to use a long-shank No. 2 hook. For sheepshead, it’s more successful than a circle hook. I fish it on a Carolina rig with about an 18-inch leader.”
Hook a live shrimp just under the horn. Avoid penetrating the black spot in its head. Fish shrimp vertically with as little weight as possible. Thread a dead shrimp all the way up on a long-shanked hook, like a plastic trailer.
“I like a long shank hook or 3/8- or ¼-ounce H&H jighead,” Carpenter said. “We smash down the barb. As long as we keep the line tight, we won’t lose the fish. A sheepshead usually won’t swallow the lead. We get about 10 or 12 fish to a jighead fishing it the way I do.”
Small live blue crabs and crab pieces also make excellent sheepshead bait. Hook live crabs through the shell by the rounded rear swimmer fins. Hook a crab chunk through a leg hole. Although not commonly used in Louisiana, fiddler crabs also make superb sheepshead bait. Drop morsels next to bridge or dock pilings or other structures.
“Crabs make outstanding sheepshead baits,” Brodie said. “Pull the top shell off and break a crab in half or quarter it. For a big crab, we cut each half into three or four pieces. A fiddler crab is like candy for a sheepshead.”
How to hook sheepshead
Even the larger sheepshead nibble baits. Almost timidly, they examine baits before tasting them. The finicky feeders can drive anglers crazy, deftly slurping bait or snipping off shrimp chunks without touching the hook.
Anglers might not even detect subtle nibbles or perhaps just feel a slight tug or heaviness on the line as if it snagged an oyster or something. Catching sheepshead almost comes down to anticipating a strike by instinct. Old-timers used to quip, “Set the hook before a sheepshead bites.”
“It takes a while to learn how to hook sheepshead,” Brodie said. “Sheepshead make a very distinctive soft tap when nibbling a bait. Sometimes, the rod tip just starts to bend a little, but it could be a 10-pound fish taking the bait. I let them take the bait just a bit before setting the hook.”
However, when hooked, these brawlers rage a piscatorial tug of war. Built for power, not speed, sheepshead hunker down amid entangling structures. Relying upon brute strength, sheepshead dare anyone to budge them. Frequently, they rub lines against sharp objects to break free.
Bridges, docks, petroleum platforms and any other barnacle-encrusted structures make ideal places to catch big sheepshead. In deeper water, pull as close as possible to the pilings. Tie up rather than anchor whenever feasible. Vertically drop baits next to the pilings. Slowly lower the bait, pausing periodically to determine the right depth.
“I’ve seen sheepshead feeding around the pilings,” Kreeger said. “They come up to the surface and lay on their sides eating barnacles. When concentrating on eating barnacles like that, they usually won’t eat a shrimp, but if we drop the shrimp right past them to the bottom, sheepshead will follow it down and grab it.”
Where to find them
Although sheepshead tend to prefer natural baits, they sometimes hit various artificials, primarily soft plastics that mimic shrimp or crabs. When sheepshead hover next to pilings or other structures, they make great targets for fly fishermen casting feathered creations that resemble shrimp or crabs. Many anglers work a hair jig called a Mardi Gras crab to entice sheepshead.
To fire up sheepshead, scrape barnacles off the pilings. This makes a tempting cloud of succulent barnacle meat in the water. Sheepshead quickly home in on that scent. Also break dead shrimp into small pieces and toss a handful in the water to get sheepshead excited.
Rocky or concrete jetties hold huge sheepshead. To avoid constant snagging when fishing jetties, use popping-cork rigs sweetened with live or dead shrimp. Sheepshead might also hit a soft-plastic shrimp imitation, such as a Vudu, D.O.A. or Gulp! shrimp under a cork. Toss the rig as close as possible to the rocks. Try different depths to see what works. For fishing deeper structures, use a slip-cork rig. With a slip cork, people can vertically fish any depth from a distance.
“Sheepshead are not always on the bottom,” Carpenter said. “It’s difficult to fish on the bottom around rock jetties because we lose so much tackle. We put a shrimp 2 to 3 feet under a cork and start experimenting with varied depths to see where they are hovering.”
Since sheepshead love structures, anglers without boats frequently catch huge fish off seawalls, bulkheads, docks, public piers and other places. Many people toss old bait, crab or oyster shells, food scraps, cracked clams or other morsels off docks. Some of the best fishing occurs near fish cleaning stations. Anglers cleaning their catches toss scraps into the water. Fish scraps attract crabs, shrimp and other creatures, which interest sheepshead.
Lake Pontchartrain
Sheepshead typically run about 2 to 6 pounds. However, the world record weighed 21.25 pounds, a fish caught off the concrete seawall where Bayou St. John flows into Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans.
With several bridges and numerous artificial reefs, the Lake Pontchartrain system offers some of the best sheepshead fishing anywhere. The Causeway, the longest bridge continuously over water in the world, runs 24 miles in two parallel spans across the widest portion of the lake. Thousands of barnacle-encrusted pilings create unlimited sheepshead habitat.
“I’ve been fishing those bridges since I was five years old,” Kreeger said. “I love catching sheepshead. It’s one of my favorite fish. My biggest weighed a little more than 10 pounds and came out of Lake Pontchartrain. I’ve seen quite a few 7- to 10-pounders come out that lake.”
In addition, you can fish the twin Interstate 10 spans, U.S. Highway 11 and a railroad trestle across the eastern part of the lake. People can also fish the U.S. 90 bridges and railroad trestles crossing the Chef Menteur and Rigolets passes that connect Lake Pontchartrain to Lake Borgne.
“We usually get a big sheepshead run starting in September and going through November,” Kreeger said. “My favorite place to catch sheepshead is along the train trestle in the middle of the lake. The trestle holds more shrimp and crabs around the pilings. I like when we get a good tide range from about 0.6 to 1 foot. It could be incoming or outgoing as long as it’s moving.”
Great fishing for kids
Anglers can catch sheepshead anywhere in coastal Louisiana or Mississippi with hard structures. In the Grand Isle area, several rocky structures and a bridge hold sheepshead. Also, people can fish the close platforms in the Gulf and structures in Barataria Bay.
“All the rocks around Grand Isle, especially on the backside of the island, are good places to look for sheepshead in the fall,” Carpenter said. “The platforms in the bay, especially to the east, hold sheepshead.”
Fishing for sheepshead requires considerable patience, but a mess of hard-fighting powerhouses can save the day when fishing turns tough, especially for young or inexperienced anglers.
“Sheepshead are absolutely important when trying to introduce children to fishing,” Carpenter said. “Children can have the time of their lives catching sheepshead. In the right spot, people will catch them until they get tired.”
For information on the Louisiana artificial reefs, see www.wlf.louisiana.gov/fishing/artificial-reef-program.
