Fillets bigger than your face

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Weekday fishing is awesome if you can get out of the office. Weekday fishing when it's a little rainy and foggy is especially awesome. During the week there are far less people out on the water, so more fish for me (at least that's my theory). If the weather sucks, than all the better. Nobody fishes in crappy weather. Me, I don't care. The fish gotta eat, regardless. I'll suffer through some rain and cold, even wind to a certain extent, to catch fish. 

Speckled Trout

I was able to get out of work about an hour early the other day with my boss and we took the boat out for about an hour and a half and fished one of our lucky spots in the Southern end of the bay near Destin, FL where we kill it about 85% of the time. It was pretty foggy and there was a light rain. When we got there there were a few old-timers that were just leaving. They said they caught a couple keeper Redfish and Speckled Trout, but threw them back. 

I grabbed a live shrimp out of the live well and hooked him underneath his horn, around his brain and out his back and then threw him out in the water toward some docks about 30 - 40 feet in front of me. I had a 1/32 oz split shot a few feet above him for a little extra weight to cast him out a little further and to get him to the bottom quicker, about 14 feet down. BAM!!! Almost right away a 17-inch Speckled Trout hit him. In the live well he went. 

Sheepshead

Sheepshead

Not too long after that my boss had something nibbling on a second pole he had used to throw a shrimp out while he fished the other side of the boat. He set his rod down and set the hook on the other. He ended up pulling in a nice 18-inch Sheepshead. And if you've never looked inside a Sheepshead's mouth, well, lets just say you don't want to stick any fingers anywhere near it. They have these teeth that look like sheep teeth (hence "Sheep's head") except they have multiple rows going back into their mouth. Freaky. They use their teeth to eat barnacles and crustaceans. Next time I catch one I’ll take better pictures of its mouth so you can see. 

While we were screwing around with this fish another one took the shrimp on the pole he had just set down. It was another Sheepshead, but it got off. We didn't catch anything after that all the way until the sun had set and it was dark. That's when I pulled another, "hey, this is my last cast and then I have to get going," moment and, of course, that’s when I hooked into an 18 inch Sheepshead, myself. This was the first time I’d ever caught one. In the live well he went with the others and we took them back to the house. I can’t wait to taste him.

 

Fillets the size of dinner plates!