I took advantage of my days off today and yesterday and launched the Hickory Nut to check out the early shad bite. Yesterday, I caught about 75 by myself. Today, I took my little fishing buddy, Tripp, and we ended up with about 50. The bite is outstanding already, and it will only get better as all the fish finish their migration up all the rivers. Shad fishing is one of my favorite things to do. These fish are mostly 2-4 pound fish that are very acrobatic and have amazing strength. We use light action 6’6″ to 7′ TFO spinning rods with Quantum Smoke 15’s spooled with 15 pound braid. We mostly fish tandem shad rigs with a spoon in the back and a crappie jig in the front. We catch lots of doubles on these rigs. They are also excellent fish to catch on fly rods. I use a 4 weight Sage X 9′ with a Tibor Light Spring Creek spooled with 150 Grain 24′ Sink Tip Rio line. We often use tandem flies as well. Catching two shad at the same time on a 4 weight fly rod is quite the fun!
If you’ve never tried shad fishing, you definitely should. We’ll be doing plenty of striper fishing over the next few weeks as well, so if stripers are more your thing, we can get you on some.
Next open dates: Feb. 19-21 Mar. 6, 12, 14, 16, 21, 26-28 Let’s go fishing!
