Fiddling Inlet Harbor Sheepshead 10/3

About 3 bait shops in New Smyrna were out of fiddler crabs today, had to hitup old Donalds Bait & Tackle on dunlawton to grab some more for winter sheepshead baitstock. Again keeping your own fiddlers seems to be very easy for longterm. I just keep my fiddlers in a bucket of saltwater about an inch high. I also add things in the bucket that the fiddler crabs can climb out of the water such as plastic mesh racks. Right now I'm feeding them leftover crab pellets and algae tablets, and changing the water about every 3-4 days. I check them daily and haven't seen a single dead one in the last 4-5 days.

Headed to the Inlet Harbor this morning and decided to walk the beach first with Cody. After a 20 minute walk and collecting some broken sand dollar pieces, we headed to the dock. It was about an hour until slack tide so we started with shrimp. First I noticed a stringer of fish in the water that belonged to the only other guy that was there. Lets see, the stringer had a ladyfish...umm okay...and also a couple snapper that looked clearly short from my perspective. Ignored it and went on with my business. Caught a nice size pigfish on shrimp. After a round with me it went back into the water with a busted lip.



Tide finally slacked enough to work the fiddler crabs. First caught a keeper Mangrove Snapper that I released back. And the Sheepshead were chewing today too. Caught 3 short ones 10-11" that all got a release. Took a photo of the inside of the mouth so you guys who don't know can see what we're dealing with.