Sheepshead and smallmouth

[dashaver63]

Here is a question to all of you that frequent Lake Erie, it's something I've often wandered about. If you go out to your spot and it's known to hold smallmouth, but you start catching SH's, are the smallies suspending above the SH's, or do they just run the bass out of the area. I always think about putting about a 2 or 3 foot dropper under a dropshot hook just to see but I never do. If anyone knows, I'd be interested in hearing.

Doug

[Eric]

They will definitely cohabitate.  See them on camera together.  I think the smallies sometimes mix right in, above them, around them, etc.  Changing the heigth of your drop shot may often cause you to catch different species, or even different quality of the same species.  I know some guys who are out there enough that they (think anyway) can tell the difference in the bite between the two and won't set the hook on a drum.

[dashaver63]

I know that when you get bit by a sheephead, it will really hammer your bait, but a smallmouth will just feel heavy. But who really knows? Thanks!

Doug

[joshimoto son]

Here's the mistake I made a few weeks ago.

While fishing a ledge out on Erie using my DS rig we were catching mostly smallmouth with a few sheepheads mixed in. I got a really good thump and I set the hook. Imidiately the fish just started pealing line off just like a good size sheaphead does. I therefore imidiately gave up on the fish and was just waiting to play the darn thing out. That is until he came up out of the water only to reveil himself as a really nice brown fish were he spit my rig back at me.

I don't know about anybody else, but I don't think I want to play that game anymore. If I was in a tournament that day, that particular fish that swam away scott free would have made it into our top five.

I think I'm just going to go fishing and see what I get when I pull it up.

joshimoto son

[bshaner]

I tried to stay out of these recent drum/smallie discussions at the risk of being a contrarian.  I am not as good at polishing my responses as Josh is

I could never bring myself to play the "what kind of bite" game.  Set the hook, let God sort them out is my motto.

But then, I've been known to vault sunfish out of the water and over my shoulder.  -shrug-

B

[dashaver63]

Thats kind of the philosophy I've taken since losing 3 that would have gone at least 4 during the Stren last year. Hook and fight every bite as if it were a smallie just to be on the safe side. Just when you think you are fighting a sheephead because it didn't vault to the surface, it could be that kicker you've been looking for. I too have been known to launch bluegills and 6"ers over the boat, at least we get a good laugh!

[Eric]

I jerk really hard on every bite if I think it may be a fish I want to catch.  I don't think I will ever be confident not setting the hook because I think it is not a smallmouth.  It's fun to catch fish, regardless of species.

[fiker]

Like wise ole Joshimoto once told me, "Hooksets are free".  Set em all.

I've only caught two sheephead in my life both of them struck harder, and ran faster and harder than any smallie I've ever caught.
But admittedly, I've never caught a 5#er either and both of these sheepheads were every bit of that.

[Cheetam]

I heard if you boil sheepshead it tastes like lobster....mmmmmmmmm....boiled sheepshead...

[djkimmel]

I'll tell you all one thing I know FOR SURE!!! If you're catching a LOT of sheephead on Lake Erie (maybe anywhere else too it seems) - LOOK UP - because YOU'RE fishing WAY TOO CLOSE to ME!!! You NEED to MOVE!!!!

...give me a jigging spoon and I'll catch a sheephead out of the Erie Metro Park parking lot! -SheepmasterSon kimmel

[dashaver63]

Now you've gone and done it Dan! Talking like that and I'm sure to draw you next week-end! You can just keep them farm animals occupied for me so I can catch what matters, CATFISH!

[djkimmel]

Yeah - I only catch a few of those critters a year... NEVER caught one on St. Clair and they tell me the place is overflowing with them!

BUT... sadly (or gladly for you!!!!) you do not have to worry about drawing me next weekend. I'm on the 'need a break and don't like being a donater' reserve list for that last two BFLs. You all will have to stick 'em for me. I won't be there.

Have fun and don't take any wooden jerk baits.

[motocross269]

I was fishing a tournament in LSC this weekend and I hooked into a fish that just about took my rod out of my hands..It felt just like a huge smallie, it made a run to the surface and everything..We couldn't get a good look at the fish and my boater netted it..Sheepshead..I don't think there is any worse feeling than catching a sheepshead in a tournament.....

[dashaver63]

You're right about that! Especially when you are using $6.00 a pack Gulp Goby's.

[joshimoto son]

On last Friday, my last day of a poor excuse of a Stren Tournament, my boater hooked into a fish that he thought for sure was a sheephead. he almost gave up on it, and he even debated trying to shake it off once we got a couple small looks at it. It never came up and it made a lot of runs on his 8lb flouro.
Turned out that smallie went 4-14 and anchored his 17lb plus limit.
It was my turn shortly after that, yep... mine was goobermouth.

Needless to say, if you slack off without knowing what that fish is, Murphy will almost always prevail.

joshimoto son

[Dan]

When I talked to my friend Don who just won the BASS Northern Regional in Vemillion, Ohio, he said on his second day he hooked what he was sure was a sheepshead and told his partner to sit back down. When he got it up to the surface it just layed on its side a second and he saw it was a 5+ pound smallie. He hollered for the net and it must of woke the fish up because he said it just went ballistic and came off. He ended day two with just a 15 oz. lead. Could have been 5-15. He thought about that fish a lot that night. Turned out he didn't need it but...... I guess he just wanted it to be interesting.

[djkimmel]

djkimmel's rule of sheephead: If he hooks it on Lake Erie... it is probably a sheephead. Makes it simple for me anyway, which is one big reason I usually run north...