Are they good to eat? and if so, what do you catch them on?

Sheepshead are excellent eating, but don't have a lot of meat on them for their weight. You can catch them the easiest around jetty rocks and pier pilings using shrimp or other small crustaceans. Many people use a long cane pole and dangle the bait in the channel just beyond the rocks on jetties.

I was fishing at the Flagship Sunday. The water was extremely clear. I could see sheephead in the size of say 2 foot swimming around the pilings. I almost caught one in my net.

The Winter Terrorists...er...I mean Winter Texans (read yankees) love 'em.

I don't mess with them. Too much work for too little meat. The only suitable fillet knife for them is a claw hammer. They're tough to fillet.

They are great eating. Trick is not to fillet them. Just scale head and gut then bake whole. Will taste similar to crabmeat if you do it right. They freeze better whole too. Fillets get freezer burn easier.

Some of the seafood restaurants have a dish called 'Bay Snapper' - one guess what it is.... Yes, and there is 'puppy drum', too. Lotta discards, tough to clean as stated above, but the meat is fine.

I eat um.... course my family is from Louisana... we eat everythang

Very good to eat. They are a species of Porgy, which most all of are great to eat. They do have some bones and not as much meat as say, a comparable sized snapper, but the meat is excellent. Bake 'em whole and pick the cooked meat out for fish tacos. AWESOME!

good eats and good fight on light tackle!

Yes, don't fillet them. Fry them up on the pan or bake whole.

The winter texans typically catch ghost shrimp from the beach and fish exclusively for Sheepshead. They are excellent to eat.

Fiddler crabs and Hermit crabs are a top bait priority when it comes to sheepshead. They are a blast to catch and the meat is great grilled, baked or made into cubion/kubion or gumbo since they have that crab and oyster flavor. I really need to get to the jetties and get a few.

My cajun buddies call these fish "people-teeth", and yes sir, they are difficult to filet. These cajuns showed me a method of cleaning them that took alot of the brain damage out of doing so... We used an electric filet knife (a regular one will work) and fileted from the top of the back and bumped into, but went around the rib bones with the skin on, then worked around the bones until the filet separated skin and all. Then it was an easy cut to separate the filet from the skin. It was kind of a pain, but alot easier than whittling thru the bones. A 6lb. sheephead won't yield alot of meat, but what little comes off is pretty good eating.

i do a version of this with a regular knife, works well for all fish with large rib bones, hard to explain, how it can be done fast, i'll have to take pictures one day. no use dulling your knife with the rib bones when you can just cut around them.

-oh and they're good eathing but like mentioned, low meat content for such large fish