met 23sailfish at Wappoo ramp around 6:30AM Sat with 2 heavy pints of fiddlers, some mussels, frozen scrimp, 8pc box of fried chicken and no landing net. we boarded 23’s awesome boat and headed to Caper’s Reef to what we thought was going to be a parking lot. SE winds maybe 8-12MPH greeted us as we got to the jetties. menhadden everywhere in the harbor but of course we don’t have a cast net either. ran about 30MPH to the reef only to find a small handfull of other boats. ran right up to the best structure we fished all day first thing. within an hour I believe we had caught what would be our biggest fish all day; 23’s 5 pounder and 2 more around 3.5 - 4lbs. water temp around 68 and max’d out around 71 in the afternoon. winds lay down and the sun beamed all day long. we prolly caught 30 total fish bit ended up keeping 11 total 2-5lbs. made it back to the weigh-in by 4:30ish and proceeded to watch as some absolute slobs were weighed in. we never even took out fish out of the cooler! 10.68lbs won it. DNR was there sexing and weighing the fish and taking otoliths for study. the Charleston Inshore Anglers out on a great tournament and we had an incredible day of fishing.
23 said he was a sheep rookie, but don’t let him fool you, he is a very quick learner. the 2 largest fish were his.
enjoy, I know I sure did…
saw lots of these bad boys…these are not cannonball jellies…
You may not have weighed a great fish but I know you all had a great time as the sheeps pound for pound are some of the best fighting fish I have ever busted.
Don, this was the first time that Ricky and I have fished together and I know it won’t be the last (unless he disses me). the big fish we caught were awesome. I missed about a 9 pounder (or so it seemed) and 23 missed a couple of 5+ pounders. he has much to teach me about offshore fishing…i have much to teach him about beer drinkin… :0)
And the sea shall grant each man new hope as sleep brings dreams of home ~ Don Cristobol
I was really hoping we’d get you hooked up on one of those reef donkeys. I have no idea why they wouldn’t eat, but I can promise you I’ve never had that problem before. Usually you can’t keep them off your baits. We saw a small school of about ten fish or so that were good sized. At least 30 to 40 lbers or so cruising around on the surface. Surprised me that they weren’t even interesting in the jig. I promise Bonzo, when we get you out there bottom fishing one day, you’ll hook into one and know what I’m talking about.
I had a great day and lots of laughs were shared. We’ll definatly do it again sometime. This wasn’t my first time catching sheepshead (caught several bottomfishing with shrimp before), but it was my first time directly targeting them. I see why people do it. It’s a little different than a lot of fishing I’ve done, but very addicting. Bonzo had a stud sheepie on for about 15 seconds before he spit the hook. That one likely was a little bigger than our previous catches, but we never got to see it. Oh well, there’s always next year.
Went out and bought a new camera from Best Buy yesterday; being without a camera on the water was pretty foreign to me. I’m usually the one taking 93 pictures, not the other guys on the boat!
Please donate today to help a special child in need…
I thought that was you fellers over there in that pretty blue boat. You guys were right over the structure we fished Friday when we went out to scope things out - it was our first time fishing for the sheeps out on the reefs.
We were the guys in the T-top anchored up about 250 yards to your SE. We had the same luck as you - caught lots of fish, just none with any size.
Oh, and that school of AJs came by our boat, too, but we had no 'hadens to throw at them.
