I caught a drum in the yough river with a power grub on a jighead!
 

Did you keep those sheepies?  
 
What is a snipe?

come on Pens...you are supposed to be the guinea pig for taste testing the sheepy...
 
Pork, slot size black drum are really good.  The really big ones, like 40+ pounders, are fun to catch on light tackle but too big to keep, at least they were, in TX.  They are filled with worms when they are that size anyways, as are the bull reds.  
 
Most of the legal black drum I caught ended up as shark bait though...either whole live or fresh dead chunks.

I have a friend who swears cooking smaller Sheepies on the grille are great eating. He claims ones under 20 " are his choice anything larger forget it. He says they have a slight shrimp / lobster taste . I'd say icing fish down fast is always a plus on any species you plan on eating. Problem is getting drum around 20" or less is a challenge on Erie . They are scrappy fighters when hooked and Erie has some monsters . I've never tried them personally .  

Any recommendations for a good braided line?

Sheephead must be prolific. I was at Lake Ni****ing in north Canadia drfting a crawler in60 feet of water and caught a big one.

I use Power Pro #20 n #30

I do power pro too. Some of mine is pretty old too.

We have used power pro for years on our trolling gear. No problems with it.

Seems like power pro is the consensus choice.

I’m really coming around to braid with a flourocarbon leader for presentations like drifting unweighted plastics. Not as much line twist, and you can feel the lightest little taps. Flouro seems like it’s still the way to go for stuff like dragging jigs across the bottom (?).

I took the boat to wilhelm this morning for the first time this year. The water was super murky and muddy. I fished the end up around launch 1, got a few small bass and got chased off the water by the storms. Surprisingly the lake was practically deserted so it was pretty peaceful. I need to put more time in on this lake to get a better handle on the patterns, but it’s a long drive and these days I have more fun fishing rivers and creeks, so it’s hard to justify the haul.

eyesandgillz
No stretch can be a blessing of a curse, depending on what u r fishing for.  Some stretch can be good, like when pulling a dipsy and a steelie smashes it.

I don't troll much, but I do loosen my drag when I am targeting fish that I know will hit hard or make runs.  Too many instances of steelies, wipers or Spanish macks straightening hooks or breaking leader line on a tight drag (or mono running line if not using braid). 
 
I just got back from Emerald Isle and one of the things that I learned from casting for the mackerel.  Only landed one this year and lost a few others.  Turned half into ceviche, the other half into saba.  It was delicious!  I used the same rod for some smaller surf bottom fishing and would need to tighten down a bit when bottom fishing with the heavier sinkers on hook setting or wouldn't get a good hook set.
 
Of course, NC puts a ban on keeping flounder and I catch a doormat!  Got two others, depending on the ever changing size range, could have been keepers too.  Beyond those, fishing was slow.  A ton of lizard fish, a small bluefish, 2 small sharks (I think black tips or sharpnose), small croakers, small whiting and pin fish.  Still beats the heck out of sitting behind my work computer!  Kind of hard to get back into things...  

Not taking fishing gear???  Wha, wha, what???  I pack my fishing gear when work has me within 60 miles of the salt, unless it is Jan/Feb...  If I went for a week without my fishing gear, I would have to quit fishing and take up golfing!  Which I have debated this past year!  
 
I hear you on not being able to find anything.  We waited too long and couldn't find a house.  We couldn't find anything between DE to NC that fit our checklist.  Besides a few that were completely price gouging.  We split our crew into three condos.  Which was less than the cost of a house for the bunch, so wasn't bad at all.  We were ocean front, which was nice, some of us had better condos than the others.  Being in the condo complex may have actually have been a bonus for the teen kids, not that I was too much of a fan of that, but kept them contained a bit. 
 
It took a bike ride for me to get to the back side and not much access for back side fishing in EI.  I talked to one of the locals, he said the puppy drum and trout fishing was hot right now.  I didn't get any in the few times that I tried.  I had mackerel on the mind, so mostly stayed front side and just easier for me.  Renting a kayak would be a great asset, if you can get it in and out easily and a safe place to store.  I assume the same species biting in the ICW behind Surf City, I think probably 20 miles by air from where I was, so fishing should be similar (all depends on conditions at the time).  I had a few nice takes while fishing behind and did get one of the smaller flounder there.  A ton of finger mullet at the back side spot that I had fished.  I had some nice strikes on chart/pink Z-Man diesel minnow (I think called electric chicken or something).  My nicer fish came at the inlet though, right where it met the ocean.  That was about a mile walk for me (had a few close calls with the early morning coffee effects)...  Mackerel was on a lead casting tin that I bought a bunch of blanks from Ebay and finished myself (chart/holographic silver foil), so kind of a bonus thrill of something I put time in making.  The flounder was on a Doc's Goofy jig which are big down in Florida (pink/white with a chart/green teaser, hit the lure).  By that time in the week, I was figuring to try something new.  I'll definitely be using those more.
 
10 day tourist salt license is $11 + $2 processing fee.  With how much the average meal is at a restaurant now days, it is pennies compared to the rest of vacation cost!

Pork, 
What Condos were you in?  If you ever make it back down there and do the condo thing again, try the Ocean Club in Indian Beach.
Scroll through the pics:
https://www.google.com/maps/uv?pb=!1s0x89a8edf43ac3e1bd%3A0x4a20a1d86672a6b6!3m1!7e115!4shttps%3A%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipO8FkXv8er0tznXFdUqn0XMXuIaBe5Uu2ACQOg1%3Dw240-h160-k-no!5sOcean%20club%20condos%2C%20Indian%20Beach%2C%20NC%20-%20Google%20Search!15sCgIgAQ&imagekey=!1e10!2sAF1QipO6Czo22enMxpSZwWnmUktmHtXCN316EQWodn4o&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjXw_fJhfLxAhXQKFkFHez_B-gQoiowEnoECEYQAw
 
They have frontside and back side condos and you have access to all the amenities, including their dock on the back side (unless they have changed things since we were there).   We fished and crabbed off of it and if you aren't afraid to wet wade, a nice sandy entrance to wade fish the back side shorelines.  
 
We stayed at an ocenfront condo and drove and parked back by the backside pool when we wanted to fish and crab.  
 
Another rig to try for flounder is a tandem rig...I used it during the fall run in TX all the time.  
Use a 1/8 or 1/4 oz jig head and plastic body of your choice (salt water assassin, curly tail, shrimp body, whatever) but on the hook tie off a tag line of fluoro about 18" or so and tie of a kahle hook so the dropper left is about 12".  On that, put a live mud minnow or finger mullet.  (size of the jig head depends on the size of the live bait u r using).  Drag that puppy along the bottom.....the jig will stir it up and attract and if they don't bite on it, almost too hard to resist the small live bait that immediately follows.  Always got to wait to set the hook for the flatties too....I lost a TON in the beginning setting the hook too soon...they love to barely hold the bait in their mouth and then swim off with it...I have sometimes opened the bail and waited 30 or more seconds before setting the hook. 
 
You can alsow use a 3-way swivel for the tandem if you want but I always liked less hardware in the water....or, you could use heavier fluoro leader like 30#, tie the jig head on one end and the hook on the other and just do a simple loop knot in the middle to tie off to.  Just make sure the heavy jig is on the the shorter tag end so the bait is trailing.
 
 

Went to 48ft out of Elk yesterday. I figured it's about 3 to 3 1/2 miles. That's about as far as I ever want to go with my rig. Took us 22 minutes to get in from out there with my 20HP and it was semi flat. It ended up 2s outta the NE by the time we hit the mouth. I might be in the market for a 25 or 30 next season.

Fishing was terrible in close. We covered water from 42, which is were we blasted them Monday, all the way into that 20FOW. We caught all snipes. A friend gave me a tip to run out deeper so we did, as I said. We got 8 in 45 minutes on meat n dispeys. All really good fish ranging from 20" to 25". We are going out of Shades starting next week, as you can hit 40s n 50s only a couple miles out. Which is more my "speed". Good luck to anyone going out and enjoy. We have all next month.

I belong to another forum, Lakeontariounited, that shares lots of nice pics of fishing and hunting stuff.  just wanted to remark on its latest posting which includes a pic of a 26 lb Ontario steelhead.  Caught and released on the north shore I believe.  Anyway, it's truly spectacular.