April 2nd, 2008

Man, what a day, 84 Sheepshead in 4 hours… APRIL FOOLS!

Just kidding, with the wind coming out of the SSE at a brisk 10 – 12 knots, it was a little breezy on the water today.  I met up with Tim, Kim and their two sons, Andrew and Jacob from Michigan at 7:30 am to do a little Sheepshead fishing and see what else we could hook up.  They told me that last night they went down to the Perdido Key bridge and fished a little there, but only got catfish. Well, on our first 3 drifts that’s all we caught too. I asked them who brought the catnip on my boat. I had to move spots, as it seemed this spot was littered with little 2lb meow mix critters.

After I relocated and started our drift I was sure that our catfish days were over, but noooo! Little Jacob hooked up another catfish! Then Dad said, “I’m on!” and the way his rod was doubled over, I knew it was no catfish. As the fish peeled line off the reel, I heard Tim say, “If this is a catfish it’s the biggest one I’ve ever hooked,” but as it got closer to the boat it showed its stripes and was I ever relieved; it was our first Sheepshead of the day. Mom and Andrew were eager to hook-up on some hard fighting Sheepies, too, so I rebaited the lines, and we repositioned again and started our drift.

This time we had a double hook-up and both fish were nice 4 – 6 lb Sheepies. Andrew was the lucky angler of the day, hooking up on 6 striped keepers. It was a fun day on the water, though we boated more catfish than I wanted. We ended up with 15 Sheepies, and had 3 big fish take us to the bottom and one fish straightened out a hook. Tim and his family were a delight to fish with, even though little Jacob told me at the end of the trip that he wore his lucky catfish hat.

Tight Lines

Capt. John

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