Sheephead Harvest Time

“The sheephead are in”, are words that many here have waited to hear. Never mind that many disdain the fish, it’s one of many great eating fish that you can catch in the Gulf waters and one you can catch without a boat. The words mean that the sheep head have come in to spawn and so the local hot spots are crammed full of boats.

The fish can best be described as a crappie on steroids. It’s a fish that can reach up to eight pounds and comes equipped with sheep like teeth that literally crush clams, small crabs, oysters, and any of course shrimp. Now usually any fish that eat what I like to eat is itself great to eat and sheephead are no exception. It’s a white meat that you can fry, bake, or grill and you may even have eaten it without even knowing as it’s sometimes presented in restaurants as a fish called bay snapper.

Luckily I got the chance to fish the old Fina Docks as my friend Dave invited me along. Reaching the decaying structure, one must tie up to the rusted posts, using a rebar hook attached to a shock absorber rope. You can anchor if you want to lose the anchor and if you want to swamp the boat when a large ocean going vessel passes by and throws a large wake!

Hooking on to a jutting piece of the dock we were immediately catching fish. No time to take a sip of coffee, no time, or need for a bite or snack, no time really as every time you drop down your bait a sheephead eats your shrimp. The fish is a hard fighter that circles and dives back down suggesting the size of the fish, before you see it.

The fish in Texas must be fifteen inches long and so as soon as you take it off the hook you must place it on a measuring board before placing it in the cooler. This is no mean feat in itself as the fish is armed with large sharp spines, teeth that will remove fingers, and gill plates that will deeply slice your hand, (My fingers and hands are still aching from the damage the sheephead exacted before their cleaning).

It took us less than two hours to catch our limit, as we caught and released many undersized fish, two hours of frantic action that reminds me of harvesting salmon in Alaska. Now the question is should we fry, bake or grill the fish? Clear skies