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.

Dunlawton Fishing Pier 9/27

Another day of good weather called for another day of fishing. I had sheepshead on the menu today, and I brought my own fiddlers for the offering. Keeping fiddlers alive is easy. All you need is a bucket a saltwater and a rack so they can climb out of water. Change water every few days and toss dead ones out immediately. I feed the fiddlers mini algae pellets.

First stop this morning was to see if my favorite sheepshead dock was available near the ponce but no go with the crowd. So plan B back to the Dunlawton fishing pier, where I know a few sheepshead are holding up. My son was with me again today and he caught a small 9" mangrove snapper on dead shrimp. He tried hard to catch more but it was another tough day. Only saw a couple 8" or 9" mangroves caught from the surrounding fishermen.

As for me, I also caught a small mangrove on shrimp. Then the current slowed and I switched to fiddler crabs. Caught a small pufferfish on a fiddlercrab! Working the same spot, my fiddlers were getting crushed again by something. Kept at it and finially got a 12" sheepshead for the cooler! No pics of the snappers and pufferfish, I hate touching my phone with stinky fingers. But here's the sheepshead on the table getting ready for a fish print. The styrofoam keeps the fins in place as so.



and fish print of the above sheepshead :)

Windy Presidents Day @ Sleepy Hollow

Presidents Day was this Monday and my son was out of school. So with his day off I took him to New Smyrna to show him my new favorite fishing spot in Sleepy Hollow. The skies were partly cloudy, with a high in the upper 60's. The North winds were pretty strong around 14-15mph though. We arrived around 10:30am and setup on the far leftside point where I caught my last flounder. The tide was just starting to go out so the water levels were still high. But the winds were a problem today, it was blowing in our face the whole time as we're facing the north. I also brought my castnet which was useless since there were no baitfish, even if there were baitfish it would be difficult to see them in the turned up water.

So instead of jigging for flounder and instead of fishing with live bait, I focused on fishing with dead shrimp on a pompano rig. I know there's no pompano in this river but it's a good rig for bottom fishing. The only thing biting today were the pinfish, those pesky bait stealers. Cody and I managed to catch 1 pinfish each. After we were done fishing I took Cody down to my favorite baitshop, 38 Live Bait in New Smyrna. I asked if they had any live fiddler crabs and they sure did, they had ALOT! I bought a dozen for only $1.30 and gave them to Cody. He wanted to keep them as pets LOL. I would much rather fish for sheepshead with them but Cody really liked them so I said okay, you can keep them. After the baitshop we stopped by the North Causeway to look around. There were two guys out there fishing with live fiddlers and they were catching a few sheepshead. In the few minutes we visited, one guy actually caught a small one that was released. So the sheepshead bite is definitly on right now, especially around the bridges. The lady at 38 Live Bait even said there have been fishermen coming in and out asking for fiddlers, and that they are catching them pretty consistantly right now. I hear sheepshead are difficult to catch and perhaps one day I'll give it a try. But not today, Cody wouldn't let me use his "fiddler pets" for bait so we left to grab some lunch. lol