The Flyfish Journal - The Flyfish Journal 14.4
CUTBANK ROCK DONKEY: Making the case for sheepshead respectability
Words, Photos and Captions: Kendrick Chittock 2023-06-16 10:51:46
Breakwalls and industry are common along the Ohio shoreline of Lake Erie and provide a mixed bag of structure and scenery. A calm evening and a quiet sunset make up for the lake effect weather patterns that frequent northeast Ohio. The fishing helps, too.
I’ve recalled my first memory of fishing in Lake Erie so many times I can no longer rely on it for accuracy. But like any self-respecting angler, I’ll share it anyway. There was a sunburn. The Lord saw fit to stick me with a significant lack of melanin and then imbue me with the desire to float on large bodies of water beneath the bright sun. The several anglers onboard this memory, including me, caught their limit of walleye. We used spinning gear with worm harnesses, which included live bait. I’ll accept forgiveness at the end of this story.
When a walleye made it to the gunwale and into the hands of the guide, she threw it from bow to stern like a tossed beer, consequences for drops be damned. The fish hit the back of the open cooler like a last second half-court heave in a basketball game. Smack! The lid shut by magic, and I wiped the exploding fish grime off my red face. Whatever it was we were doing on the lake with all those walleye, the child version of me loved it.
At the time, there was a particular behavior that didn’t seem significant to my young, accepting mind. If any number of the anglers onboard hooked and landed a sheepshead (though it shares some surface similarities with the Gulf Coast marsh-dwelling fish of the same name, the two are separate species) the guide would encourage, or carry out, the deliberate destruction of said fish by bat or knife. The reasoning eluded me, and still does, but the action stuck. To my childhood mind, sheepshead were trash. As an adult, and as a fly angler, I found myself asking questions about sheepshead…awkward questions.
It started with a tentative comment during an otherwise normal fishing conversation about which flies to use for smallmouth bass on Lake Erie. “Great fly,” I said. “I swear those sheepshead love it too. I know they suck, but I had fun reeling one in!”
This type of talk needed to be reeled in if I was ever going to be invited on another charter boat. The older the angler, the larger the frown I received. I tried a more subtle tactic: “Yeah, we’re going after smallies. Don’t mind if I hook a sheepshead, though—good fun on an 8-weight.”
On some occasions, people agreed with me. My confidence increased and I took a turn for the worse. “Hey, did you know sheepshead are drum? Freshwater drum? Kind of like a redfish!?”
I knew I’d have to expand my search for someone as intrigued by sheepshead as me. My angling friends showed no interest, my elders shrugged me off. Bass were for flyfishing, walleye were for eating, and there was no in-between. I had to dig deep to find someone with enough of an attitude to have fun chasing a fish so many despised. I had to find a guide. Not just any guide. I had to find a “full-guide.”
I would bet a sheepshead otolith that you know the two types of guides. The first, more common kind are the guides who fish part-time. Maybe they ski in the winter, have a second job, or don’t need to work for whatever reason. It’s a great gig if you can swing it. But then there are the full-guides. They adorn their beards with old fly patterns and pick errant hooks from their fishing caps. They often have some kind of family, but never in a traditional sense. They are always calm and collected…unless you readjust the drag on their reel or give them one too many whiskeys. If I was going to communicate about bycatch with a full-guide, I needed to chill out all my rhetoric, pose no threat to their livelihood, and try as much as possible to know what the hell I was talking about.
A small research project set me up for first contact. It has a few more respectable names than the chimera-inducing imagery of “sheepshead.” The scientific name is Aplodinotus grunniens, which, due to a lack of retaining any Latin from grade school, I will translate as “freshwater drum.” In Canada, the fish is called a “silver bass,” while in the south an angler might refer to one as a “gasper goo.” Expand your search beyond reliable sources and include what can be found on Wikipedia, you might come across a longer list of unverified names including “shepherd’s pie” (sounds delicious), “grunter” or “croaker” (accurate), and “gobble gobble” (reminder: this is from Wikipedia). Male freshwater drum do make a croaking or grunting sound with their swim bladder during the spawning season, which explains the variety of names. Native throughout the Midwest and beyond, freshwater drum can reach sizes upwards of 30 inches and 20 pounds in lakes and slow-moving pools in rivers. In Ohio waters, the drum is classified as a forage fish, which means it can be taken in any numbers of ways, including spinning gear or flyfishing, but not by explosives or firearms. Armed with enough knowledge to convince a full-guide I was worthy of a little reputational risk, I planned an outing.
The nice thing about fishing with a full-guide is that they are good at it. From sandy shoreline and fishing piers to break walls and submerged rock piles, John Fabian of Covered Bridge Outfitters and Lodge found freshwater drum in different locations with a variety of tactics. The only bycatch was smallmouth bass, all of which were released. Freshwater drum like clear water and, in Lake Erie, they like to eat the invasive zebra mussel, but it turns out a good place to start is with a box of smallmouth flies and a sink tip line.
After all my questions and comments, it turns out I wasn’t crazy, at least regarding freshwater drum fishing. Catching a drum on the fly is fun, especially on an 8-weight. Just like a redfish. When the shallow fishing slowed down and the drum took a rest, we took out the spinning gear and added a few walleye to the cooler in a show of respect to the charters of our youth. We made new memories with bent fly rods, breakwalls and boxed walleye. I don’t think I’ve kicked my walleye worm harness habit yet, nor do I hope to, but I can now speak about the newly christened “rock donkey” with reverence, hooking something old in a new way. Imagine the changed memories of anglers yet to come, who can look back at us and wonder what assumptions we bled out and tossed overboard.
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