January 21, 2025
By Frank Sargeant
Sheepshead are not all that mysterious most of the time. Put a piece of fresh-cut shrimp in front of where a school is hanging around a piling and reel them up.
But bigger sheeps, 3 pounds and up, are harder to find and harder to fool. And even the smaller keepers can get tough to coerce after they’ve been beat on by lots of anglers. But there are tricks to the trade that will nearly always produce.
1. Silence is Golden Because you can often see sheepshead swimming around structure like dumb, oversized bluegills, there’s a tendency to think they’re not wary. And that’s true in many areas when they first move in for fall. But after they’ve seen some of their buddies take the one-way ride to the surface, they get a lot smarter. And older sheepshead with several seasons behind them are pretty smart to start with.
Sheepshead are a favorite among anglers fishing for the table, and they’re abundant inshore throughout the cooler months. (Photo by Frank Sargeant) 2. The Fall Bite Sheepshead tend to show up in waves inshore as water cools in fall, starting in October in north Florida, November farther south. After this migration of fish gets caught off, there’s a midwinter slump in many areas, though if you search for overlooked spots—sometimes small bridges on deep coastal creeks can be a gold mine—you may connect in December and January.
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Sheepshead also move into the jetties of the major passes all the way from the St. Mary’s on southward to Sebastian Inlet on the Atlantic shore, starting when water cools to around 70.
The winter bite slows dramatically when water temperature gets into the low 50’s—like other fish, they just don’t eat as often. Best bet for cold-weather action is usually to fish the warmest hours of the day, from 1 to 4 p.m. on sunny days, and save the dawn patrol for spring. Forward scan and side scan sonar can be a big help in finding schools, especially in deeper water—the flat sides of sheepshead show up bright and clear on both.
Sonar can be a big asset in finding sheepshead on deep structure, with side scan particularly useful. 3. Sheepshead on the Flats In some areas like the east shore of Tampa Bay, winter sheepshead get into the shallows and tail just like redfish. On sunny days, in water from 10 to 18 inches deep, you’ll see their dark gray tails waving above the surface as they root around for crabs and shellfish in the sand.
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They are, however, a lot more nervous than redfish in most cases—the slightest noise, waving of a rod, splashing water or landing a lure too close will send them rocketing for the nearest hole or the drop at the edge of the flats.
Catching them is a matter of a slow, patient approach, low profile and a good first cast with a live fiddler crab or shrimp on a 1/0 short shank hook, unweighted. The bait should land 10 feet or so ahead of the fish—any closer and they usually spook. Let them swim up to it, smell it and hopefully it’s game on—they fight a lot like reds, but that broad, flat side gives them more pulling power.
4. Spring Giants While sheepshead of all sizes hang around structure throughout the winter, the spring spawn gives the best shot at the giants for those who seek out the right spots. February, March and early April are prime time, starting mid-state and working north as the water warms to 70 or more.
Sheepshead mostly spawn on nearshore structure including rock piles, wrecks and channel edges, either off the beaches or in large bays like Charlotte Harbor, Tampa Bay, St. Andrews, Choctawhatchee and Pensacola, in February and early March in the southern half of the state, throughout March and early April in the north. Find these concentrations—it takes lots of graphing and experimental drops with live bait—and you can load up on whoppers.
Average keeper size sheepshead are 15” or so, but 5-pounders and larger are always a possibility. (Photo by Frank Sargeant) 5. The Magic of Jigs—and Fiddler Crabs The obvious rig to catch sheepshead is a Carolina rig, a sinker, swivel, leader 12 to 18 inches long and 1/0 to 2/0 hook with a fresh shrimp tail. Use enough weight to put it on bottom, whether that’s 5 feet down or 30 feet. This works most of the time.
But many of the anglers who concentrate on catching big sheepshead rarely use anything but a specialized short-shank jig as characterized by the Bottom Sweeper, a compact, rocker-style jig with an extra strong short-shank hook designed specifically to hold not shrimp but fiddler crabs.
Fiddlers are basically sheepshead crack—they may ignore fresh shrimp at times, but they’ll almost never ignore a live fiddler. The design of the Bottom Sweeper and similar jigs holds the bait up slightly off bottom, and the compact hook is less likely to snag than some.
Compact jigs with short shank hooks like the Bottom Sweeper are favorites of sheepshead specialists for fishing fiddler crabs. (Photo courtesy of Bottom Sweeper) 6. Catching Fiddlers While fiddlers can be bought from specialty bait shops in sheepshead country, you usually have to catch your own. Fiddlers are generally catchable so long as temperatures are 60 or warmer—they disappear underground with extended cold and the only way to get them then is to dig up their holes—more effort than it’s worth for most.
They’re usually found on flat, muddy marsh with sparse spartina or other grass—some type of cover they can get under when birds attack them. Wherever they are there tend to be lots and lots of small little mud balls covering the surface of the mud flats, a sign of fiddlers feeding.
Sheepshead can occasionally be caught on the flats by anglers skilled in silent delivery of fiddler crabs or shrimp. (Photo courtesy of Capt. Rick Grassett) The basic way is to grab them by hand, but you’ll get a lot more with a small mesh long-handled net of the sort kids use at the beach. Or if you get serious about it, bury a bucket in the beach, add a couple of boards to herd them toward the bucket and make a roundup in high density areas. It’s a muddy business, but well worth the effort. They will stay alive for several days on damp sand. You need a lot of them for a day on the water—one drop is often you get from each bait.
The baits are best hooked up through the back edge of the shell, so that the crab faces aft to the jig. Drop them straight down next to the piling, immediately put the reel in gear and hold slight tension on the jig—when you feel the bite, set the hook.
You can often find sheepshead around structure throughout the winter. (Photo by Frank Sargeant) 7. Gear Up for Lunker Sheepshead While you can reel in 12- to 15-inch sheepshead all day on standard flats tackle, when that 5-pounder takes hold, you’ll want some stouter gear. A medium-heavy 7-foot spinning rod, 3000-size reel and 20-pound test braid with 20-pound test fluorocarbon leader is the choice in the usual dark-water situation where sheepshead are found in chilly weather.
You need this not because big sheepshead are so strong—although they are strong—but because they are nearly always caught within inches of pilings, docks, piers, riprap and other assorted line-cutting cover. So, you have to be able to haul them away from that structure, quickly, to get them in the boat.
(To be sure, where ‘heads are hard fished or water is clear, its sometimes difficult to get a bite with 20-pound-test leader—15 will get more bites, but you’ll get more cutoffs, too.)
Pilings loaded with barnacles and mussels are very likely sheepshead hangouts. Scraping the barnacles to act as chum is a sure way to get sheepshead in a feeding mood. (Photos by Frank Sargeant) 8. Get Chummy with Heads Chumming often turns on sheepshead not in a biting mood. Pilings with lots of obvious shellfish growth, particularly barnacles and mussels, are likely sheepshead spots, plus they have built-in chum.
Just spud them off the pilings with a hoe or shovel—as the broken shells and meat drift downtide, they lure in sheepshead quickly—and sometimes black drum and redfish, too.
After you scrape, sit still and quiet and let the chum do its work. If you keep moving around and scraping now and then, you’ll put some fish off. If you see fish on a spot, they’ll bite sooner or later, though you may have to hit the spot on moving water—slack tides turn them off, as with many species.