Seasons greetings, happy holidays & Merry Christmas! Winter fishing is in full swing, and that means sheepshead. While I did hear scattered reports of flounder in Pass-A-Grille and redfish in Blind Pass, and I saw a 23″ gag grouper caught on the Merry Pier, all of my luck came from targeting sheepshead from docks around the Blind Pass Marina.

Once again, the trick was finding big (2″-3″) mud crabs, which I located under rocks at low tide along the seawall in Pass-A-Grille, and at the East end of Corey Avenue. Watch out- they pack a wallop in their pincers, so handle with care. I used a fairly light spinning outfit, 20 lb Spiderwire, and a 25 lb fluorocarbon leader, with a #2 Owner hook and a 1/4 oz weight. Drop a crab to the bottom RIGHT NEXT to a piling, crank it up a turn, and wait patiently. The sheepshead bite tends to be pretty light, and as soon as the line appears to have any weight on it, it’s time to set the hook.

Over the long Christmas weekend, I managed to catch a couple dozen sheepshead, most of them in the 3 to 5 pound range. As an added bonus, I caught a few 12-14″ black sea bass. Who knew they’d take crabs? Anyway, plenty of fillets in the freezer now.

It’s that time of year again – sheepshead time! Saturday was a bust for fishing, with cold weather and windy conditions. Sunday proved much better, and I met Tim at the Merry Pier. I had a few mud crabs which I collected off the rocks at low tide, and the sheepshead found them irresistible. I managed a few keepers, then headed to the St Pete Beach Yacht and Tennis Club to watch the Bucs game at a friends. Yeah, the game sucked. But Tim and I hit the docks after the OT, and the sheepshead were plentiful here as well, including some seriously big ones. I plan to hit this area again soon, and with a better supply of crabs.

Meanwhile, Merry Pier was pretty quiet besides the sheepshead. No sign of flounder, although I saw several decent black sea bass caught. The highlight, though, was a 25″ gag grouper coaxed out from under the dock by these guys:

 

 

Nice fish!

Well, the front shut down fishing this weekend, so I developed a roll of film. Here are a few highlights:

Cap’t Dick batteling an amberjack:

David with a big amberjack on the other end:

And… the amberjack:

And another one:

And, yes, I got one too:

Yes… JoeMama IS the ‘dolphin king’!:

Way cool – Joe had a family of three dolphin following us for 20 minutes, jumping and playing in the wake of the Getaway:

Ahh… I can’t wait for next summer:

It was a busy weekend for fishing here in Pinellas County. I closed shop early on Wednesday, picked up 10 dozen fiddler crabs in anticipation of a sheepshead extravaganza, and headed to the Merry Pier. I did manage a couple small sheepshead in an hour or so. I returned Thanksgiving morning, started scraping barnacles off the pilings, and fired the fiddlers to the bottom. It appears that my previous headline “The Sheepshead are In” was a bit premature. I managed to get three or four, but no big ones, and the ones that were there were few and far between. I saw a few small flounder caught, and a big redfish lost, but overall it was a very slow fishing day.

Friday was a different story. I met up at sunrise with Captain Dick, his son David and a couple of his friends for some offshore fun. We quickly filled the livewell with small to medium pinfish, and a couple decent blue runners, then headed out to an amberjack spot in around 100 feet. David dropped the first bait, and we were hooked up in seconds.

Over the next 60 minutes, we put four big amberjack in the box, averaging around 30 pounds each. We then headed to a ledge for grouper and snapper. And they were there- we boxed a nice gag, along with a healthy mango and a couple of Porgies as a bonus. We ran back to a spot in 80 foot next.

The bottom finder went crazy, showing huge clouds of fish. We dropped, and were all soon hooked up. Turns out there was an incredibly large school of banded rudderfish on the spot- good eating, but not what we had in mind. We sent a couple big pinfish down, and were greeted with a double hookup. And these were BIG fish- no doubt gags. Only one problem- both fish managed to rock up. When a hooked grouper succeeds in wedging himself into a hole, they’ll start ‘drumming’ emitting a low frequency sound that serves as an alert to all the other grouper in the area. Sure enough, we didn’t get another grouper bite after that.

Still, it was  a great day on the water- waves around a foot, temperatures in the mid 70’s, lots of sunshine and plenty of fish. An outstanding day!