Michael Clark’s 9.66-pound sheepshead might not be the biggest ever caught, but it’s the heaviest officially recognized sheep ever caught on a fly rod in Louisiana.
Clark, of Charleston, South Carolina, and his father-in-law Craig Pagels booked a couple days with Louisiana Low Tide Charters and Captain Lucas Bissett last January to fish the marshes of Delacroix
The big sheepshead came on the second afternoon of the trip. The day had dawned clear and calm, but when winds picked up in the afternoon it stirred up the mud bottom they were fishing. Captain Bissett made the call to move in search of a sand bottom and clear water. It was a good call.
Bissett spotted two sheepshead from the poling platform.
“He told me to strip out all my line and said ‘four o’clock, four o’clock,” Clark said. “I threw it out there and dropped it right on the shadow. Then I waited for what seemed like forever. Then I twitched it once and it took the fly.”
The fish ate Bissett’s own pattern, a Bissett’s Mud Bug, which has a deer hair head and a baitfish profile. It was caught on a 10-weight Orvis Helios. The Louisiana Outdoor Writers Association (LOWA) recognized it as the fly-caught state record.
The all-tackle LOWA record for sheepshead was caught in 1982 by Wayne Desselle. That one weighed 21.25 pounds.