Fiddling Inlet Harbor 20" Black Drum 10/17

Another morning fiddling some sheepshead at the Inlet Harbor with my son, Cody. Loaded up 2-3 dozen live fiddlers from my home stock. Also brought a bag of frozen dead crabs to be used as chum. Just crush them inside the bag, add some water and dump in the spot your fishing. If you keep fiddlers at home, just freeze the dead ones when you spot them. The fresher the better.

We get there shortly before 8am and the tide is low. Cody gets the first two fish which were 2 short sheepshead - all released. Then I get into a small mess of snappers and catch 3 on fiddler crab - all released. No sheeps for me today, can't say I didn't try. Kept at it with the fiddlers anyway and my time paid off when I caught a 20" black drum. It was a prison outbreak today with all the stripes!









Here's a print of 20" black drum :)

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.

Inlet Harbor (Ponce Inlet) Saturday Morning 9/12

Headed out to the Inlet Harbor with a bucket full of live finger mullet and some frozen shrimp. Stopped by 38 Live Bait to buy some live fiddler crabs. Arrived at the fishing spot around 8am, paid my dues ($3) and went down to setup. Two other gentlemen were already there and they were nice company throughout the entire time. I started with some shrimp and landed a sailors choice and then a cool looking pufferfish. Each time my bait dropped it didn't take long to get a bite and they were quick to steal the bait. The other guys were catching some keeper mangroves but they were just barely legal.

After I was tired of messing with the bait stealers, I setup one rod to fish live finger mullet on the bottom. First hit came and it was a small snapper. The next hit on finger mullet had a nice drag screaming run. I fought a 17" crevalle jack on the deck and decided to keep this one for chunk bait.

By now the current had slowed down and I was ready to try the fiddler crabs for sheepshead. Managed to get two 11" sheepshead! It felt good to finally catch them on fiddlers after many failed attempts in the past. I used to always buy a few dozen crabs and never caught a thing on them.

Overall it was a great fishing trip. Two straight times I've had success catching some variety there. It seems to be a good sheepshead hole but a lot of them are short. Although it's not even sheepshead season yet so perhaps the bigger ones will come in when it cools off. I'm still learning the spot and the hidden structures underwater. I've been broken off at least twice today just getting snagged on something.

Inlet Harbor (Ponce Inlet) Saturday Morning 9/5

It's Labor Day weekend so I took the opportunity Saturday morning to take my son, Cody, out for some fishing. Left the house around 6:30am and arrived to the baitshop around 7:30am. Loaded up with 3 dozen shrimp and 5 finger mullet that I netted the night before. Arrived at Inlet Harbor at 8am and noticed we had the fishing dock to ourselves. The dock is only open 6am to noon on Saturday/Sunday, plus there's a fee to fish the dock. But it's usually never busy and it's shaded which is great for hot summer mornings!
First cast I hook a 9.5" sheepshead! Same spot I get a 11.5" sheepshead and another one at 11". Then the mangrove snappers come marching in, caught a couple 11" keepers and 6 short throwbacks. Also hooked a small toadfish and a big sailors choice. Just about everything caught on fresh dead shrimp. Had a couple good runs on the finger mullet, missed the first run but the second one I landed the 11" mangrove snapper. Good morning on the water!