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Fishing along the coastal jetties that can be found from Sabine Pass to Galveston can be very good for sheepshead during the late winter months. Best bait is freshly peeled shrimp.
Catching a fish these days is not the easiest thing to do when temperatures go from one extreme to another. Crappie are easy to catch right about now on the Angelina River on the upper part of Sam Rayburn Lake. They are usually best on live minnows fished in 20 to 25 feet of water in the river bends and brush. On Toledo Bend, you can find them at the Crappie Coop area of the lake with live minnows. But if you want some quick hit fun you might want fish with dead shrimp on bottom along the Sabine and Galveston jetties for sheepshead.
A sheepshead is not the prettiest fish you’ll ever catch, but during the cold winter months they are easy to find and catch along the many jetties from Sabine Lake to the lower Texas coast.
They are hard-fighting fish and taste great on the table. And once you find one, there are likely to be plenty more nearby.
Rigging up to catch a sheepshead is easy. You can fish them with a straight line or under a cork. Kids do better with corks because they can see it when it goes under water from a bite. The best rig I’ve seen for these fish to run your main line through quarter-ounce barrel weight and tie the tag end to a swivel. Tie a 2-foot section of leader material to the swivel, and the tag end to a 1/0 to 3/0 kahle hook. Skewer on a one-inch piece of a peeled shrimp and you are ready to fish. The best depths are usually from 5 to 15 feet deep.
The daily limit on sheepshead is five with a 15-inch minimum length.
The 2022 Toyota Sharelunker
season is off to a good start
It didn’t take long for the first pair of Legacy Class largemouth bass of the 2022 Toyota ShareLunker season to find their way into anglers’ boats. It was more than fitting that Tyler Anderson from Austin and Wendell Ramsey Sr. of San Angelo, landed 14.48-and 14.92 -pounders during week one of the season at O.H. Ivie. Last year, the fishery produced 12 of the 23 Legacy Lunkers during a remarkable 2021 season.
Anderson hooked his personal record at O.H. Ivie to begin his 2022 Sharelunker season and reeled in seven and five pounders on the first trip to the lake. On day two, the first fish of the day proved to be the fish of a lifetime for Anderson.
“I stumbled upon a school of what looked to be eight or nine fish,” said Anderson. “My cast ended up being a little too short and landed right on top of where they were. My Alabama Rig fell right into the school of fish, but I didn’t even have to retrieve the lure. I lifted it up and started my retrieve and the fish was already on. I’ve known about O.H. Ivie for many years and last year’s success with ShareLunker’s reinvigorated my desire to get out there.”
“I have wanted to be a part and contribute to the ShareLunker program for a long time,” said Anderson. “When I quickly weighed the fish in my boat and saw the scale, I told myself my fishing for the day is done with this lifetime catch. I headed into Concho and everyone there was great. It was all about taking care of the fish until TPWD personnel arrived. This fish did great, and we made the transfer for its trip to Athens.”
Ramsey, who is a fishing guide in West Texas with a lot of experience on different lakes, secured his Legacy Lunker on an umbrella rig with 3.5-inch-long rage tail swimmers. Ramsey was asked by a good friend to take their grandsons fishing.
“We started out working some spots for white bass and black bass to get a few bites for the kids and have a good time,” said Ramsey. “It was slow, and we moved around the lake to some different spots before we circled back to where we started. I spotted a fish suspended in about 14 feet of water and quickly grabbed a fishing pole. I sent the cast past the fish and slowly let it go down to about eight feet before I started reeling. The fish hit the bait and when I set the hook it didn’t budge, so I knew it was a really big fish. The battle started and I eventually brought it into the boat with the dip net.”
Once the fish was in the boat, Ramsey instantly knew it was over 12 pounds but had no idea it would top the 14-pound mark until he got it on his digital scales.
Once TPWD Inland Fisheries biologists were notified, they quickly got on the road to collect and transport “ShareLunker 609” and “ShareLunker 610” to the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens, where biologists provide them top-notch care. Biologists plan to attempt to spawn them to make bigger, better bass to stock in and enhance fishing in Texas lakes.
“This is a great start to the 2022 collection season,” said Kyle Brookshear, Toyota ShareLunker Program Manager. “After the historic 2021 season, it seems fitting that the first two entries come from O.H. Ivie. Many predict another record season for trophy bass catches across the state and with the 2022 season underway, time will soon tell.”
During the first three months of the season (Jan. 1 through March 31), anglers who reel in a bass larger than 13 pounds can loan it to TPWD for the ShareLunker selective breeding and stocking program. These anglers can call the ShareLunker hotline at (903) 681-0550 to report their catch 24/7 until April 1, 2022.
Anglers who catch and donate one of these 13-pounders earn Legacy Class status, receive a catch kit filled with merchandise, a Legacy decal for their vehicle or boat, VIP access to the Toyota ShareLunker Annual Awards event and a high-quality replica mount of their lunker bass from Lake Fork Taxidermy. These anglers will also receive entries into two separate drawings- a Legacy Class Drawing and the year-end Grand Prize Drawing. Both drawings will award the winner a $5,000 Bass Pro Shops shopping spree and an annual fishing license.
The year-round Toyota ShareLunker program offers four levels of participation for catching bass over eight pounds or 24 inches in Texas. The 2022 season offers an opportunity to join the special club of premier anglers who have submitted a Legacy class ShareLunker.
Anglers who enter data for any lunker they catch greater than 8 pounds or 24 inches during the calendar year 2022 also receive a catch kit, a decal for their vehicle or boat and an entry into the year-end Grand Prize Drawing to win a $5,000 Bass Pro Shops shopping spree and annual fishing license. ShareLunker entry classes include the Lunker Class (8lb+), Elite Class (10lb+), and Legend Class (13lb+).
Once a lunker is reeled in, anglers need to enter the catch data on the Toyota ShareLunker mobile app – available for free from the Apple App Store and Google Play – or on the Toyota ShareLunker online app at TexasSharelunker.com. In addition to providing basic catch information, anglers can also provide a DNA scale sample from their lunker bass to TPWD researchers for genetic analysis.