In the past, while fishing some residential docks on the east side of the Indian River a few times, I’ve noticed there is always a good amount of sheepshead looking at me while I target other inshore species. So on my way to the ol nauti ice (aka my boat / the name is still a work in progress), I stopped in at Man Overboard Bait and Tackle in Indian Harbor Beach, and I saw a good deal on live fiddler crabs. I decided to grab a few dozen critter crawlies with sharp pincers and determined that today would be the day I catch my first sheepshead.

On my way out to the first zone, I encountered some rough chop in the middle of the river. Not realizing that my bucket of fiddlers grabs had fallen over in the process, I began my trip playing cowboys and indians. Is that still a politically correct game? Idk, RIP childhood. Anyways, like any good pre-fishing trip plan… nothing today would go as planned. After a casting, a few fiddler crabs into the wind at laid up sheepshead on dock poles, all I caught at first was a couple of catfish. Who must have been on the bottom just picking up the crumbs that the sheepshead knocked off the dock pole. Frustrated, I moved on. Using my trolling motor I kept a steady pace, keeping my eyes peeled for any activity along the residential docks. You could see a lot of bait activity everywhere because the water was 3ft deep and clear this time of year. After about a mile of cruising, I found a section of docks that had mangroves and rocks nearby. I saw at first an upper slot redfish, I had a pole pre-rigged with a gulp shrimp so I quickly pitched a couple of feet in front of him, but had no success.

Even though I had missed a nice fish, my heart was racing because up until this point, I’ve never really seen clearly the fish I intended to cast at. The water clarity is usually 50/50 or murky at best in my area, and I usually let fleeing bait let me know where the fish are. So excited to sight cast at more fish, I slowly kept working this area. Soon after, I saw three slot size snook, a handful of peanut redfish, and a nicer sized sheepshead. So naturally, the only thing that wanted to come out and play was a bunch of mangrove snapper. Every time I used either the live fiddler crabs or the gulp shrimp and casted at snook, redfish, or sheepshead. A mangrove snapper came out and ate it. A couple of blind casts with the gulp shrimp did lead to a couple of nice speckled trout, and one smaller redfish with a really lit up blue tail.

Other interesting events that happened during this midday voyage, was that I saw what I thought at first was a shark or a nonrealistic mammoth-sized snook. But after further investigation, it was just the biggest gar I’ve ever seen on the flats. Which was a relief, because there were a couple of kids swimming nearby and a crew of dockworkers in the water. Today, I also had my pups Loki and Brooke with me. While I was hooked up with a nice speckled trout the wind pushed the back of the boat to where it was just barely touching a dock. Both dogs jumped out and started running around the backyard of this multimillion-dollar home. Brooke luckily came back immediately because she’s a German Pointer and always listens. Loki, on the other hand, being an English Pointer, decided to act like she didn’t understand everything I was saying to her and had a nice bathroom break/backyard fiesta (Sorry if you’re the owner and reading this). I had to act like I was driving away without her before she decided that fishing was more fun than a jailbreak drill.

Overall it was nice to be able to put a handful of fish into the boat while sight casting for the time. All the fish caught were caught in the middle of the day between 11:30am-2pm. I believe I proved to myself today that even though it was the middle of the day, there were dogs in the boat, and nothing went to plan. If you are persistent enough, you can still catch fish and just really enjoy the day out of the water.

Spanky