Pat (yakscientist), Mike (MikeO), and I traveled down to Chic’s Beach and met Jake (Jman) this past weekend. I’ve been talking about it for months now and damn near canceled again, thank goodness I didn’t! Saturday started off slow, I hit three blues trolling on the way out on a zman then switched over to sheepshead fishing. I’ve caught sheep before, but in much shallower water around different types of structure. I wasn’t feeling too bad because nobody else was catching any all morning, but later I realized some things I was doing wrong. For starters, we only had current the first maybe hour we reach the first island, and according to Jake that was pretty key. Later in the day the current picked back up and proved him right. He landed the first sheep of the day at an eye watering 25.5”! I don’t remember who caught what after, but I landed my first one at almost 24” and about 12 lbs shortly thereafter, then two other average sized ones maybe 14-16”. Jake finished with three total also, his next two similar to mine. My fatal flaw was fishing the bottom and not mid-water column next to the pilings, and things quickly changed after that. I also caught countless sea bass and croaker that I was using for cobia bait, and an undersized spadefish. While I was sheepshead fishing I also had out an eel rigged to the bottom and a croaker on top, searching for a cobia. I lost one croaker at the top and another was bit in half, likely a shark, but I had a very solid take on the eel that I’m fairly certain was a cobia. He took the bait, swam away slowly then stopped. I got impatient and took a swing too early, but my eel looked mostly untouched. That’s what cobia do, they just hold things in their mouth forever and you’ve got to wait. Oh well, maybe next time.
Thank you Jake for the fiddler crabs and guidance! You’re a knowledgeable fisherman and great person, I hope to meet again.
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Thank you Jake for the fiddler crabs and guidance! You’re a knowledgeable fisherman and great person, I hope to meet again.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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