So I was recently on a dive job at a military installation south of here. I think it is safe to say that there is ZERO recreational or commercial fishing within the area. During my last dive, which was right at high tide, I noticed quite a few sheephead within the upper 10 feet of the water column. Overall water depth was between 30 and 50 feet.
This got me thinking about how I fish for them. I generally fish for them either 1: standing on beach groins and fishing right on the rocks, or 2: around piles from a boat. Typically I also target them at low tide coming in. Most of the time that I am fishing around pilings, the water is only 10-12 feet, so I usually let the fiddler sink to the bottom and reel up a couple/few feet and wait.
My questions for the Sheephead Barons are:
1 - How much does tide matter for sheephead? Obviously to some extent it has an effect, just like any other fish. But how much?
2 - Low coming in? Mid-Tide? High going out?
3 - When fishing piles in a water depth of 30-50, how do you fish it for convicts? Do you work the whole pile? upper 10 feet? Lower?
I am certainly not a sheepie newbie. Just figured I would try and get some different input.
Not that I’m a pro… But when we look for them it’s generally like you said… “Two cranks off the bottom” tide may matter but we look no matter the tide … And stu ally find them. Inshore on docks only
I rarely have a chance to fish for them at 30-50 feet unless it’s offshore. That depth inshore seems to normally be a cut with a ton of current, so i would only be able to fish it on slack high or low. But, I have had some success on slack tides by bring my bait well off the bottom to target the middle of the water column if nothing is happening down deep. Certainly not an expert, but I love sheepshead.
I know at higher tides they will migrate up the pilings to eat the oysters & barnacles growing at the tops of the pilings that they can’t get to at lower tides. I prefer to fish both sides of low tide in depths from 4-20ft along the bottom, never really had much success fishing the water column. But because it is low tide they may be hanging out on the bottom at that point. Bait can play a bigger roll than anything in my opinion. You can be dropping fiddlers all day without a bite, change bait and boom game on.
Goob- Warmer months I will switch to square back marsh crabs, mud crabs, or whole baby mussels, sometimes you can get away with shucked oysters. But usually the pickers are just to bad. Fall is strictly shucked oysters and mussels.