The Fall bite is getting better by the day. Temps are SLOWLY coming down and fish are on the move. Either the Inlet Blennies are thinning out a bit or the Sheepshead herds are crazy thick right now. The bite is definitely hot. November has always been my "Go To" month for hammering the convicts and this one is no exception. Normally, late October through early/mid December I do very well on the Sheepshead. Eventually, the Inlet waters get too cold by the end of December to consistently target Sheepshead and I switch over to Porgies and Slot Reds. You can easily move up river and check other fishy Sheepshead spots and find locations with warm enough water that you can still do fine. By then though, I'm about ready for something different.
I took a break from the Sheepshead this past week and went after the Trout. I needed to give my river Sheepshead spots a little time to regroup. Me and my buddy Tim headed out and spent a day doing some exploring. I found an area with all the characteristics of a good Trout hole and decided to come back and fish it on an outgoing tide. The lay of the land looked perfect for a productive out going tide. Big wash-outs on the backsides of protruding structure, Rocky and shelly bottom, bait getting hammered everywhere. You name it, the signs were there and we went for it. It took us a minute to figure out how to tackle the area. After a bit of fan casting a live Mullet on a jig, we started seeing a definite pattern in the bite. It wasn't long at all before we had the area pegged and we went to work on the Yellow Mouth and Speckled Trout. The Reds were chewing too but the Trout presence was so thick the Reds didn't have a chance. We probably caught a hundred Trout in 4 hours. Specks, Yellows, and Sand Trout. The Yellows were the most abundant and they were averaging 15-18 inches. Very fat. The Specks were also abundant but most were in the neighborhood of 14.5 to 16 inches. Also fat.
Today me, my buddy Joe and his coworker hit the Inlet to go after the Sheepshead. Long story short, we beat the breaks off of them. We had 40 in the boat in 3 hours. The bite was as good as anyone could hope for. Seas were flat and the wind was calm. It was the kind of day we all pray for. Minus of course, the boat traffic. We fished the outgoing tide and caught nearly all of our fish on the south wall. Fiddlers were the bait of choice. I had a coffee can full of freshly dead Fiddlers from the day before that I used as chum. Every so often I threw out a few of the dead Fiddlers. Not a lot at a time, maybe 3 or so. Just enough to keep the fish near the boat. I wasn't able to do this until the last of the outgoing tide. With a nearly slack tide, the fiddler chum go's straight down. We did very well. I try not to waste dead bait. When my chest freezer starts getting too full, I'll break out the bags of frozen Blue Crab and crush them. Hand fulls of crushed blue crab is crack for Sheepshead and because they are leftovers from previous trips, they're almost a freebie.
I had a blast fishing with my good buddy Joe. Never a dull moment and this guy provides some killer food for our trips. Till next week partner, enjoy the fish and rest up! we'll drop the hammer again next week.
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Danny Pardue