8/17/2023 0 Comments Big sheepshead fish![]() The trick is you are going to have to get your bait close to the structure. ![]() Live shrimp will always catch sheepshead fish. Within the realm of what sheepshead fish eat, like bivalves and crustaceans, such as shrimp, sand fleas, clams, fiddler crabs, and mussels, what is the best bait for sheepshead fishing? I have heard a lot of fishermen from various places talk about good baits, but the one common thread among all these baits is shrimp. Different structure will aggregate different types of food. They will hold really tight to whatever structure they are orienting to, so you will need to get your presentations in close. You will find them around bridges, pilings, dock, jetties, rock piles and reefs. Sheepshead are a structure oriented fish, very much like snapper. I know in Florida fish have to be over 12 inches to keep, but you should really aim for larger fish, as you will not get much meat off a 12-13 inch fish. Since sheepshead have a rather large boney rib section, you really want bigger fish to get enough meet to matter. Bigger tidal movements really get the bite going, so look for big tides around the new and full moons. Pay attention to you moon phase, when considering going after this striped bandit. They are already showing up, but the bigger fish will become more prevalent as the water cools more. On the Gulf coast, December thru February are great times to bag this scrumptious fish. The cooler the water gets, the more aggressive the fish seem to get. If you understand how they eat prey, you are well down the road to knowing how to catch sheepshead.Īs fall transitions into winter and the water starts to cool, sheepshead will move onto structure to begin their spawn. So, when you feel that peck and go to set the hook and whiff, they have probably already spit your bait out. This process helps get rid of the hard shell that most of their everyday food has. They mash their prey with their hard teeth and then spit it out, before sucking it back in, and they will do this several times before engulfing the food. It is the way they eat that makes them a tad more difficult to hook. They use their hard mouth and teeth to crush the shells of prey. ![]() It has a hard mouth, with several rows of stubby teeth that have a strange human teeth appearance. The striped bandit nickname comes from their craftiness at stealing your bait. It is a great eating fish, due primarily to a diet that consists of oysters, clams, and other bivalves, barnacles, fiddler crabs, and other crustaceans. The sheepshead fish or striped bandit is a wintertime inshore fishing mainstay for many anglers along the southern Atlantic coast down around Florida and up into the Gulf of Mexico.
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