With practice you'll learn to discern a bump from a bite. Engineered for nibbling, these fish feed with rapid pecking rather than a committed gulp. With any bait arrangement, stay alert and ready to respond to a sheepshead's notorious quickness. You'll also appreciate the compact presentation when a swift current threatens to wash lighter rigs into rocky snags.

Keeping the bait and weight in line improves stealth and lengthens casts. However, you might try varying your presentations by fishing a bait on a small jig head. Threading a shrimp keeps the point closer to a sheepshead's mouth.īare hooks weighted with small split-shots and tied to fluorocarbon leaders have long been the standard for presenting sheepshead baits. Thread the shrimp onto the hook to minimize the sheepshead's tactic of pecking chunks from a loosely hooked bait while avoiding the hook. Hook a shrimp by inserting the point into the bait's tail, just under the fins. Live or dead shrimp work - the ripening scent of a deceased crustacean helps in guiding distant fish to a hook. Expect a sporty scene with rapid strikes and spirited tussles.Īrmed with medium-action, 7-foot spinning outfits and 20-pound braided line, anglers can bait their 1/0 or 2/0 short-shank hooks with shrimp. With normal weather patterns, the fish start to form tight spawning groups in February. Aggregations of these striped fish, which are members of the porgy family, signal the start of their annual spawning rituals.Īnglers who recognize this opportunity can enjoy plenty of action with one of the tastiest fish in the sea. The area starts hopping in late December when scads of sheepshead invade the rocky areas. But the vast ranges of limestone outcroppings common in Nature Coast waters don't stay vacant. When winter pushes temperatures into the low 60s, grouper move to deeper water until the water warms again in April. In mid November my hosts had taken me into the gulf in search of gag grouper, which inhabit the same nearshore rocks during the spring and fall.

Experience and a handheld GPS kept us safely in the channel, but after we cleared the last markers I was scratching my head.Ī quick glance at the range and heading on Mark's GPS revealed our location, evoking memories of a previous trip. A dense fog blanketed the coast and made it tough to spot channel markers until they were about 20 yards off the bow.

Flats fishing off bayport