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.

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 :)

Dunlawton Fishing Pier 9/20

Started at Sleepy Hollow this morning but we got there around 8am so the spot I wanted was taken, and had to settle for another spot. No fish caught at the hollow. Since the tide was super low we were able to see the fiddler crabs out and about from their burrows. And when I see fiddlers I immediately think of sheepshead. Recently I found a good sheepshead spot near the inlet so I gathered about 2 dozen fiddler crabs for another day of sheepie fishing.

Left the holler at 9:30am and headed down to the Dunlawton fishing pier, just down the road from flat bridge. At this hour the pier was nicely shaded by the main highway above. Makes a nice place to take my son when it's hot outside. Not much being caught there though. Alot of people fishing and only saw one baby mangrove snapper caught. I fished anyway and caught a small 6" snapper and then a short 11" sheepshead on shrimp! I tried a few of those fiddlers I saved earlier in the morning. They stole my bait a few times and then the bite suddenly died. Still surprised I've caught 6 sheepshead so far this month of September, all of them have been around 11"

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!

12" Flounder at South Causeway

Started in New Smyrna this morning around 6am. First stop was the South Causeway in where my old friend Dave was already setup on the dock. Dave is the guy I learned all about shad fishing on the St Johns river. It was a very foggy morning but as the sun came up the fog lifted pretty quick. I targeted the shallow area next to the parking lot with a Gulp new penny shrimp. First cast, I landed a 12" flounder!



Nothing else the rest of the day LOL. We moved around to different spots, even tried Sleepy Hollow without any luck. By the way, Sleepy Hollow is infested with ticks. After walking through the woods I checked our cloths, found 1 tick on my pants and 2 ticks on my sons' cloths. Gross!

Finished off our trip by going back to the South Causeway to see how Dave was doing. He was fishing with mussels for sheepshead, I swear it looked like a big booger on his hook. He said he caught 3 big sheeps though, with alot of small ones thrown back. I bought a couple dozen fiddler crabs to try my luck at this, but only caught 2 mangrove snappers. I think I got there too late cause the current was ripping so fast. Dave said when the tide starts going slack, thats when the sheepshead will come in to feed. So with that said, I will just have to try again next week. :)

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