Herding Morehead City’s sheep

Underutilized and underrated, convict fish can make for some sweet seafood dinners. Here’s how to put them in your corral.

While easing across the no-wake zone at the State Ports in Morehead City, Matt Lamb was paying a lot of attention to just how the tide was moving and how strong it was flowing. He had several buckets of fiddler crabs and sea urchins, and the gameplan was to invite some tasty sheepshead home for dinner.

The velocity and direction of the tide would determine exactly where the day would begin and how it would progress. Lamb, who owns and operates Chasin’ Tails Outdoors on the Atlantic Beach causeway and guides whenever he isn’t in the shop or fishing a redfish tournament, said sheepshead fishing in the Morehead City and Atlantic Beach area is underrated and underutilized. He has found good numbers of these fish wearing the convict stripes, and there are still many areas he hasn’t explored that he feels would be productive.

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