![]() There are lots of ways to go about catching fiddlers with the simplest being to simply chase them down and grab them with your (preferably gloved) hands.Ĭheck out the video below for an interesting and easier way to catch fiddlers. Rather than purchasing fiddlers, you could instead try to catch your own, if you have the time and ambition to do so. ![]() If I were to throw out a ballpark price I’d save they should be about $4 a dozen. The price of fiddlers are going to vary depending on where you buy and exactly when you buy. If your crabs are small, it’s OK to put more than one on the same hook. ![]() ![]() You should break off the large claw so as to reduce the chance of a sheepshead grabbing it and stealing your bait. This will keep the crab alive for a while, which is preferred.īigger male fiddlers, which can be identified with their larger claw, are preferred over the smaller females. Do so gently so as to not crush the bait. To hook a fiddler crab, use a #1 or 1/0 bait hook and hook the crab going in from underneath on one side or the other and come out the hard shell on top. Just but be very careful not to let your vessel be swept up onto the jetty rocks.įiddler crabs are one of the hardiest sheepshead baits and they stay on the hook the best. If you have a boat, you can obviously use any of the same 3 tactics. Some spots will have deeper water very close to shore but many will not. Depending where you are fishing, this may or may not work as you may or may not be able to reach the depth they are holding that day. Yet a third option is to use a VERY long rod, like a crappie pole or cane pole, to reach out and fish vertically over the underwater structure. It can be difficult to detect bites this way, but it will certainly work, and you won’t lose as much terminal tackle. You can expect to have some hangups and lost tackle with this method.Īnother option is to use a cork, and suspend your bait above the rocks at whichever depth you find to be most productive that day. If you do this, make sure you keep the slack out of your line the best you can so you can detect the bite. When fishing a Jetty from shore, a good tactic is to cast up-current and allow your bait to drift and fall over the submerged rocks. With ever-tightening regulations on the Gulf Coast fishery, sheepshead remain a plentiful species with a generous limit, so they are great to target for table fare. Additionally, they play second fiddle to more glamorous species, much like crappie do to the Largemouth bass. Sheepshead remind me a lot of crappie in that they have a similar panfish shape, they taste excellent and they are difficult to master. That, and the fact that they are so tasty! This makes for quite a challenging fish to catch, which is partly what makes them so fun to target. Their main hangouts include hard, jagged, line-cutting structures which makes it all the more difficult to land one after you get it hooked. In fact, at times, they can be quite finicky about which baits they will take. Pound for pound they are powerful fighters reminiscent of a giant bluegill, but,they don’t always share the willing appetite of a bluegill. These guys are very commonly caught in the 2 to 5 pound range, but it’s not unusual for them to get over 10 pounds, with the record being 21 pounds 4 ounces (Louisiana). Combine that with their black stripes and you can clearly see how they got their most common nickname of “Convict Fish”. With the aid of these tiny, strong mouths, sheepshead have mastered the art of stealing your bait. These teeth are one of the distinguishing characteristics between them and Black Drum, the only species they could likely be confused with.īoth sheepshead and black drum are grayish with dark vertical stripes on their sides, but the black drum does not have the toothy mouth of a sheepshead. Sheepshead have small but powerful mouths full of human-like teeth which they use to eat barnacles right off the side of any hard structures such as bridge pilings and piers.
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