One thing I love about the Santa Barbara Channel is that we have critters who can compete with anything you might find on Hollywood Boulevard on a Saturday night.
Some of the folks who dress wildly on that fabled boulevard would go nuts over the bioluminescence of some of our deepwater critters. Other oceanic critters can put on dances of color and form that could hold the boulevard in rapt attention.
One of my favorite critters of our local waters is the California sheephead, often called a goat by anglers and divers.
It is a protogynous hermaphrodite wrasse, which means it changes sex as it matures. They begin as females, then turn to males when they grow to a dominating size, which is determined by the mix of males and females in the vicinity.
In the absence of a sufficient number of males, the females begin changing earlier in life.
They are red as females. When they change, they take on three distinct color bands. The front third of a male sheephead is black, the middle third is red, and the back third is black.
These fish tend to forage in groups and have what appears to be a fairly well-developed social order.
As with most critters in the natural order, might is right. The biggest sheephead often dominate a reef and shoulder their smaller relatives out of the way, when food shows up.
The ideal habitat for these red and black baddies is a rugged rocky reef zone, at depths ranging from 20-120 feet. Many of the islands of the SoCal Bight are surrounded by perfect habitat for sheephead.
Some very productive areas include the entire west end of Santa Cruz Island, rocky areas off of Santa Rosa Island such as Carrington Point and Talcott Shoals, the rocky structure off of west side of San Miguel Island, the backside of Catalina Island, and the west end of San Nicholas Island.
Along the mainland coast, “goats” are typically fond of the full range of structure types; natural reefs, artificial reefs, sunken boats, oil rigs and even subtle structure like low ledges.
We also find sheephead in kelp beds while targeting calico bass and white seabass.
When we hook a goat (common nickname), they use every ounce of muscle to bulldog back down to the rocks where they can bust strong line in a hot second.
I tell my WaveWalker charter passengers, “You gotta keep them out of the rocks, or it’s all over in the first five seconds — ain’t no two ways about it.”
I recall one 10-year-old kid whose feet were lifted off the deck because he leveraged the rod against the rail while a gig sheephead made for the rocks.
Capt. Tiffany (my crew member) quickly reached over and put a hand on his shoulder to keep him in contact with the deck.
Ya know, I could write a whole article on great ways to cook sheephead, but I’ll be brief with a couple of time-honored favorites.
Many folks like to steam sheephead fillets because it preserves the texture of the meat and keeps the flavor. I’ve often heard people comment that the texture of steamed sheephead is like shellfish.
Another tasty recipe is to sauté cubed sheephead filets with butter, chopped peppers and onions.
— Capt. David Bacon operates WaveWalker Charters and is president of SOFTIN Inc., a nonprofit organization providing seafaring opportunities for those in need. Visit softininc.blogspot.com to learn more about the organization and how you can help. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
