When you think of October you probably think of Halloween and kids dressed up in costumes screaming, “Trick or Treat” as they make their way around the neighborhood collecting way too much candy. For anglers October and November are months that are known for targeting sheepshead around the docks and the Charleston jetties. For anglers just starting out fishing for these thieving convicts, the experience can be very much a trick or treat process. Sheepshead are very adept at cleaning bait off of a hook, many times without the angler even feeling their bite, or by the time they do feel the bite the bait and the fish are gone. I used to kid around with my friends that were good at catching sheepshead telling them the reason they caught such nice big fish was because I had been feeding them for years.
To avoid getting tricked you may want to go with someone that has been before. They key is to be ready and anticipate the bite. While there are all sorts of methods for catching these fish, I was taught a pretty simple system for catching them in the act. Sheephead are not like other fish in that they normally stay in one spot in the water column and use their teeth to quickly crush the fiddler from your hook. Most fish will pick up the bait and swim off with it and then we set the hook. Normally I like to fish as vertically as I possibly can and every ten seconds or so I raise the rod tip slightly. If I feel any resistance I set the hook and hold on.
Fiddler crabs are normally the bait of choice, but shrimp work well they can just be tough to get down to the target species before other smaller fish have picked them apart. Cooler water tends to thin out some of the smaller bait stealing fish and allows you to get a live shrimp down in front of the sheepshead. The strike on live shrimp may surprise you at times. The largest sheepshead I ever caught hit my bait on a dead run like a redfish and headed straight down the rocks. I was amazed when I finally got him boat side to see that it was actually a sheepshead.