Local fishing captain relies on Tampa Bay sheepshead catch during cold winter months

Captain Chase Krutzky, like many local fishing captains, hasn’t been as busy in 2024 as he was in years past.

“This time last year I had more trips in January and February,” explained Krutzky, who said the weather has been causing a lot of canceled trips. “But I try not to cancel them and have moved many to March and April. It pretty much has to be raining for me to cancel because I can still get in the backwater and catch fish on strong north wind days.”

With the hope of a good meal for dinner and a fun trip, Krutzky has developed techniques for catching sheepshead with clients, a tasty inshore target that starts to school up heavily this time of year to spawn.

“At the beginning of January, we started to see more in the backwater canals with muddy or oyster bottom and around deeper docks with rocks and structure. Around mid-January, they really started to school up in a spawning ball and we would see some schools of 50 to 100 fish chasing each other around. We can sight fish them in gin clear water like we have right now,” Krutzky said.

For tackle Krutzky uses light spinning rods, 20-pound fluorocarbon leader and 1/16-ounce yellowtail jigs with Owner Aki hooks, a weighted hook that is strong for their tough mouths with just enough weight for a natural presentation. For bait, he prefers fiddler crabs but brings shrimp as well.

“The weight on the hook is just enough to get it down to them. We seem to catch more sheepshead on crabs, probably 3 to 1, but this year it has been hard to get them. I’ve even ordered 1,000 at a time from the East Coast. I’m using the 1,000 in 3 to 5 trips. We’ve had a lot of rat reds and black drum mixed in and they prefer shrimp, so I usually keep someone fishing with both.”

Fishing shallow doesn’t mean smaller fish. The biggest sheepshead Krutzky usually sees each year come from fishing docks where it’s common to have fish bigger than 20 inches within his cooler at the end of the day.

“This week we had four fish over 20 inches within our 16-fish limit,” recalled Krutzky. “The biggest so far this year was 23.5 inches and about 9 pounds, that’s a big fish for in shallow.”

With colder weather continuing with another strong front Krutzky explained that won’t slow down the sheepshead bite.

“When the nighttime temperatures dropped into the 40s, it made them mean. It seems the colder it is the more hungry they get. Low to mid-60s water temperature seems to be ideal. They’ll stay shallow before heading to nearshore reefs, bridges and rock piles to start spawning out a bit deeper toward the end of February through March. Those days we can get a lot of snapper and grunts mixed in with the sheepshead which makes for a good day.”

Captain Chase Krutzky, who guides out of southern Tampa Bay, can be reached at (863) 255-2844.