Sheepshead Season: How We Catch Them Around Matlacha

A sheepshead from a recent trip — strong for its size and one of the best-eating fish inshore.

If you fish the winter months with me, you're going to meet the sheepshead. Striped, buck-toothed, strong for its size, and smart as a fox — it'll rob your bait blind if you're not paying attention. They're starting to bite right now, and that always puts a smile on my face, because a sheepshead day is a fun day.

Where we find them

Sheepshead are structure fish. They live on things that grow barnacles: dock pilings, old bridge rubble, oyster bars, rock piles. Around Matlacha Pass and Pine Island Sound, that kind of structure is everywhere, and it's a 30- to 45-minute run from my dock in Cape Coral to get to it. Some days we'll work structure farther out toward Cayo Costa, depending on where the fish have been.

The deeper into fall we go, the thicker they get. Every cool stretch pushes more of them up against the structure. If the first real cold front has rolled through, the sheepshead are on. Right now, they're starting — which means the best of it is still ahead of us.

What to use

Live shrimp is the workhorse. That's the bait most of them get caught on, mine included. Fiddler crabs are the other one — sheepshead love them — but shrimp is what we usually have and it gets the job done.

Keep it simple: a small hook, a short leader, just enough weight to get the bait down to the piling. Drop it right against the structure — not five feet off it, right on it. The fish are hugging the barnacles, picking them clean. Your bait needs to be in the same neighborhood.

Feeling the bite

This is the part that separates the guys who catch them from the guys who feed them. A sheepshead doesn't slam it. You'll feel a tap-tap-tap, like somebody knocking on a door. That's the fish testing the bait, trying to steal it without getting hooked. Most anglers wait too long — by the time they set the hook, the bait's gone and the sheepshead is laughing at them.

My advice: when you feel the taps, don't swing for the fences. Lift the rod tip quick and firm. You'll miss some — everybody does. But once you get the feel of it, you'll start connecting, and a two- or three-pound sheepshead on light tackle will give you all the fight you want.

On the table

And here's the other thing about sheepshead: they eat. Sweet, white, flaky meat — one of the best-tasting fish swimming inshore, and I'll die on that hill. Keep your legal fish, put them on ice quick, and thank me later.

The winter bite is building

November is the ramp-up month. Redfish, snook, and trout are still in the rotation, and now the sheepshead are joining the party. If you've never felt that little tap-tap on a dock piling, it's worth the trip out.

Come fish with me. Book at all4chuckfishingcharters.com or call 239-940-4901. Half Day (4 hours) $600, 3/4 Day (6 hours) $800, Full Day (8 hours) $1,000 — add $100 for the 5th and 6th guest. All trips leave at 8:00 AM.