a sheepish fishing trip

My Father-in-Law Jerry and I did another Hopedale trip Wednesday, leaving BSM at noon to catch the warmup and incoming tide. We first stopped at our sheephead hole in St. Malo, and they were thick. We filled up 2/3rds of the icechest in an hour with twelve 3-4 lb sheephead and three 4-5 lb drum. We decided to then check on the trout. Trout sometimes start getting funky and inconsistent by mid-December, and we found them to be slow even on live shrimp and a perfect incoming tide. We just found a few keepers in Loutre, Stump Lagoon, Mussel Bay, and Pete's Lagoon with a higher throwback ratio than normal. We picked up more huge sheephead, drum, and an 8-lb red along the way to finish filling up the ice chest.

Unless one is a trout fanatic, the sheephead is a great plan B. They are the best eating inshore fish. They school up in December with big females, then head offshore to spawn from January-April. Cleaning them takes a little longer but once you know the tricks it's not so bad. We just used fresh market shrimp for them, no live shrimp needed.

Lake Robin should be full of trout this time of year

I wasjust wondering what makes a place a good spot to.try for sheeps this time of year. Im thinking try deep curves of bayous on the bottom with shrimp and possibly oyster reefs in bays. Are these the kinds of spots i should focus on

Just move around with shrimp 3 ft under a cork in the shallows in the Biloxi Marsh and you will get a few. But the large schools are in deep canals and bayou along ledges, shellpads, or manmade structures. Fish shrimp on the bottom. The bite is a soft peck, often not felt. If the bait is gone, and you didn't feel anything, good chance it was a sheephead. Try a couple more times, and set the hook 'just in case.'

Thanks