0 We kept alive and gave it to the NY Aquarium but it didn't live more then a week.
From the sheepshead to his redfish-style flats fishing for stripers, a day fishing the spartina-lined creeks, bays, and thoroughfares with Schafer’s feels like a trip much farther south than Cape May County.
They also work well.
Tides Fishing Sunrise and sunset Moonrise and moonset UV exposure level Weather Chance of rain Temperature Humidity Visibility Atmospheric pressure Wind Surf Water temperature.
If you’ve seen how fast fiddler crabs scurry for their burrows, then you’ll understand why Schafer is careful not to lose any when removing a couple dozen for the morning’s fishing.Many of South Jersey’s most popular gamefish arrive and depart the bays during that same timeframe. Catching a sheepshead, he says, can be merely a matter of picking through the blackfish. “I’ve caught eight-pounders doing this in the summer,” Schafer says.Though tog are out of season from May 1 to July 30, if we had been fishing two weeks later, in early August instead of mid-July, we would have had little problem catching our single 15-inch or better keeper. Settings. They are real good to eat and fight hard to the boat.Tam will tell you how to put a hurt on those things.They can be found with trigger and blackfish in the summer around the Cape May jetties.
After seeing them, the Schafer brothers baited tog rigs with fiddler crabs and dropped them to the bottom. The sheepshead promptly cleaned the rigs on each drop, so the brothers abandoned the pursuit until a month later, when they discovered the productivity of crab-baited jigs for tautog. This information erases my last lingering doubt about sheepshead being a viable fishery in New Jersey.As we tie up to the dock, Schafer mentions that the flats fishing for stripers has been fantastic, even with the mid-70-degree water temperatures. The picture showed a 14# specimen taken off of one of the barnegat inlet jetties. “It wants to follow the path of least resistance,” Schafer explains, and that path is not swimming against a tight drag.
They also don't like very deep water, so you don't have much chance of getting them fishing for seabass and blackfish in 50 or 60 feet of water in the fall.
Schafer caught this fish in Late September 2018. Very possible that some of the clandestine snags that you and Mike fish may have em'. The result leaves the crab hovering over the lead, a presentation that Schafer says leads to more bites and a better hook-up ratio.With the outboard out of gear, he deploys the trolling motor and, using the remote, noses the boat into the incoming current and close enough to the bridge stanchion that he could reach out and touch it with his rod tip. Sheepshead is not frequent fish in NJ, but they are occasionally caught in NJ, especially Cape May area.