Back in the '80's, I was told if you wanted to keep from catching hardheads, use mullet for bait. I remember trying that, and it seemed to work. Now I read posts about hardheads being caught on mullet. Did the hardhead's diet change, or was I caught up in the Mandela Effect?

hardheads will eat anything. i've even caught them on spinnerbaits and topwaters.

I�ve caught one or two on topwaters and a few on various fly patterns like clousers. Gafftop seem to be much more likely to hit artificials than hardheads. I fished with live and cut mullet or shad some, but it seems like gafftop are what I get instead of hardheads. I haven�t fished with shrimp in saltwater in many years and never liked fishing with shrimp partly for the hardheads. .

Big Gafftop like fresh Squid.

Second that as far as hardheads eating everything. I remember a trip where we were catching them left and right on dead shrimp. When we ran out of shrimp, we cut the hard heads up for bait and continued to catch hardheads on hardheads

Fishing memories are notoriously unreliable. It�s one reason I kept a fishing log for years and the only reason I gave it up recently was that I�m lazy.

So whatever one, including myself, might remember about fishing years ago I treat as mostly fiction unless there is some documentation and evidence to say otherwise.

You may be right because that 5 pound bass I caught last year is now up to 7 and a quarter.

Hardheads will eat pretty much anything but if you use larger pieces of cut bait, roughly 5 inch piece or larger, then they can�t eat it quite as easily.

I usually pick up and move to a different spot if I get more than one hardhead. I just try to avoid their schools if I can.

They don't eat cracked blue crab. Just the red and black drum is all I've caught on crab so far.

Anyone ever ate a hard head or gaff top?

Yes.

I'll eat gafftop again happily. Hardhead ... it's edible, but not worth the trouble to me.

I've heard gafftop are good, but I'm catch and release when it comes to those guys and all their slime

I have always heard that gafftop are good but they are 100 times slimier than a freshwater catfish!

Hardhead might taste like banana pudding. I'll never know.

Gafftop are a total pain to try to clean. Forget that. Snot rockets.

Flounder, trout and reds are the targets. Everything else is something less.

I�m kind of with you on this. I�ll toss in a few others if I get them like whiting, croaker, Spanish mackerel, but 95% of what I eat is the big three. Don�t envision gafftop or hardheads breaking into the line up any time soon.