Started off at 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Fished mostly the Stono, Folly, and Kiawah river. Had cousin and his bud with me. They wanted to learn how to target sheepshead. Took a while until they turned on. A go-to spot that usually has them stacked up and feeding heavily this time a year didn’t yield a single stolen crab after hitting it several different times on different tides. Went down to a back-up spot and they picked up 3 good ones. Then went to an incoming tide spot I like for reds and picked up 2. The highlight was one of them popping the line but still had the cajun thunder with him. We sat there for 15 minutes watching that float work up and down the bank. Awesome. We kept humming the “Jaws” song because it would go under and we wouldn’t see it for a few minutes and then pop up some place else. We pulled the anchor, drifted the boat towards it, and… not thinking we’d really be able to get close to it without spooking… we snagged it! It was a nice fat slot red!
Later we hit one last spot for reds. First toss landed in the middle of a school and scared the heck out of them (oops). The water exploded and we just looked at them, shell shocked. We didn’t stick around long enough to see if they came back. Amazing how that school was right there… water calm… and never knew it before that cast.
Water was murky but flat & glassy. Not much of a breeze. Hardly any current at all yesterday. Fiddlers for sheep. Cut mullet on bottom & on corks for reds. Docks & banks full of oysters. Best part was seeing the guys catch catch sheep (I started getting nervous after not getting any bites for a while yet hyped them up ahead of time!)
Nice report, bait/technique and all. Congrats on a great trip.
Tidewater 196DC
Yamaha F115
Pungo 120
thanks Jim-I! kept two of the sheep and just filleted them. i don’t always keep much (well… I always keep a few sheep!) but I love looking in their stomachs to see how & what they were feeding most on. looks like the medium one (about 2 lbs) had 10 of our fiddlers in him but the bigger one (about 3-4 lbs) just had no fiddlers, pieces of what looks to be a green crab (not spider or rock), and loaded with barnacles (of course). so either the big one wasn’t too interested or he showed up and wasn’t able to steal a few before getting caught with his mouth in the cookie jar.
I hardly ever keep reds and didn’t this time but always love seeing what they’re eating too. I’ve always found predominantly crabs (fiddlers, spider, green, rock) in their bellies no matter what but not always mullet, menhaden, shrimp. I once found someone’s “electric chicken” that was so freak’n big it looked like you could’ve trolled for marlin with the (**() thing. still amazes me how big a bait a slot red (any red) will go for.
anyhow, hopefully i can get out next weekend for sheep. last year when we went the weekend before thanksgiving we must’ve caught 30-40 each (nope, we didn’t keep many… just for anyone wondering. think we kept 5). i was hoping yesterday they’d be stacked up like that but they weren’t. so we’ll try next weekend. pretty much any dock where the salinity is good, any dept but predominantly 3-4 feet deep is where we caught the most. hope this helps people.
On my last trip we got into a school of over slot Reds and had one break us off with a popping cork. This big red stayed with the school all day. We never could catch it but everytime we could find it, sometimes as much as 500 yards away, we would catch a couple more. Was able to locate it several times during the day. Was a great way to locate and find the school even thougn not intentional. Gave me some ideas though.
19’ Seapro 150 Yamaha
12’ Hydrocraft 25 Evinrude