A Georgia angler has tied a 21-year-old state record with the catch of a nearly 15-pound sheepshead near the seaport community of Sunbury.
“To be honest, I’ve been telling folks it’s been my goal to catch a state record for 10 or 12 years,” Golden, an avid fisherman from nearby Midway, told the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. “I’m excited to say that I did it.”
The DNR certified the catch Feb. 2. The official weight was 14 pounds, 14.37 pounces; close enough to tie the record catch of a 14-pound, 14-ounce sheepshead by Ralph White in 2002.
Golden, 63, used an oyster for bait while fishing with Capt. Harry Robertson aboard a private boat.
Sheepshead, immensely popular among Georgia anglers, are often referred to as “convict fish” because of vertical stripes on their bodies.
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The Georgia DNR stated that catches in the 7-pound range are common and that the fish “primarily live inshore, often near rocky areas, docks, bridges or artificial reefs, or other areas with barnacles.”
(The world record stands at 21 pounds, 4 ounces, for a sheepshead catch off New Orleans in 1982.)
Sunbury, on the bank of the Midway River, was founded in 1758. On the eve of the American Revolution the town boasted as many as 1,000 residents, but by the mid-1800s it was mostly abandoned.
Explore Southern History describes the Ghost Town of Sunbury as “one of Georgia’s most ‘dead’ or lost towns.”