Jeff's 2016 AR Shad Reports

[Morgan]

Ben Long that is such a neat video! Great job getting her out and into the outdoors let alone hucking flies.
She looks like a natural. Can definitely spey cast better than I.

[SeanO]

One shad and one striper on the Sac river down from Knights landing today. Too hot to fish very long in the boat.

Maybe wade fishing is the way to go.

[itsbenlong]

Thanks all for the shout outs for my little girl. She wants a two hand rod now.lol

Had a great evening on the A today brought 27 to hand between 3:30 and 7:30. Met a few good folks and a friend joined me in the last 2 hours as well. Can't wait to get back out there.

Mark K..... it was nice chatting it up with you. Hope to share some water with you soon.

[Jeff C.]

It was pretty crowded this evening with a mix of gear and fly anglers. The gear guys were hammerin' 'em along with a few fly guys. Fished with Sheepdog, Nathan Nguyen and Ben and his friend. It was slow for me until the sun got off the water and then it got better. At one point I hooked and landed 6 for 6 casts in a row. Andy floated by in his boat with some clients and he said the slayed 'em up higher.

[JasonB]

Well my wife and I had a challenging, yet fruitful float yesterday. Started off sour, by running over one of my fly reels... apparently not recommended! Had to spend some time unlining one reel so that I could re-spool the line from the broken reel to another. Got to cast the new line (Outbound short) about a dozen times (really loved the line) before I ended up loosing the whole head on a snag! Yet another bad experience with the "Lazer" running line stuff for me! Have to say I am not a fan...

Oh well on we went, got cut off/lowholed by a guide who at first chose to try and pretend he didn't notice the blue raft 10' to his left. Kind of lame, though when we actually initiated a little communication it was all sorted out clear enough... "I'm working". Found a BIG school of shad, got hung up and broke my fly off... drifted past the school before I could re-tie. Off to a fantastic start we did manage to hook and land quite a few shad, and a few stripers too!

Later, as I was fishing for stripers I got hung up badly on a root wad. The whole sink tip ended tangled in it, and in the attempt to steer the boat close enough to shore that I could hop out and attempt to untangle it we ended up catching the tip of my 4wt switch rod on a branch and snapping it (the rod tip, not the branch). Man, oh man! One of those days I'm thinking, at this point I have a sense of certainty that at take out we'll find our car window smashed (I was quite happy to be wrong on that one).

Despite the chaos, and feeling like a 3 ring circus act on the water; my wife and I both managed to get into double digits of both shad and stripers. On the numbers, I tend to start loosing track around 5, and after much more than that in one spot I tend to get a bit bored and usually like to move along or try something different. So I don't have a precise count, but I'm sure if we had a counter on the boat and someone who wished to get as many as possible it would have been likely 30-40 shad with how hot the bite was in a few spots. We probably each landed 15 or so, with a similar number of stripers? The striper bite really picked up late in the afternoon, although none of the stripers were bigger than 3-4lbs; still as a newer species for me, it was pretty rewarding to be able to tie into that many of them. Sure saw a ton of shad along the way too, lots in the tailouts, and some huge schools in some of the pools.
Yahoo.
JB

[Mr.Matt]

Wow JasonB way to press on with all those hiccups!
Glad you found the good in the bad and had a good day!
Stripes and Shad is a good day!

[Steelin' Time]

Just a quick "Thank You" to those fishers such as Jeff C., Jason B., Mr. Matt and others that take the time to post regularly about their shad outings. I enjoy reading the daily update during shad season.

I don't shad fish much anymore but plan to get out this month with my grandgirls in my DB.

[Sheepdog8404]

It was pretty crowded this evening with a mix of gear and fly anglers. The gear guys were hammerin' 'em along with a few fly guys. Fished with Sheepdog, Nathan Nguyen and Ben and his friend. It was slow for me until the sun got off the water and then it got better. At one point I hooked and landed 6 for 6 casts in a row. Andy floated by in his boat with some clients and he said the slayed 'em up higher.

Hey Jeff thanks for letting me meet up with you last night for some instruction! I ended up landing 6fish. You sure we're slaying them right above me towards the end of the evening! Not sure who was fishing below me (between me and the gear guys) but thank you for letting me take your spot when you guys left instead of the gear guys!!!! That was very kind!

[Jeff C.]

That was Benny (from the Bay Area) and his friend (don't know his name). They are guys I seen for years during the shad run on the A.

[Jeff C.]

Slow evening for me. Only got 8! Others did well (Ben, Reggie, Nathan Nguyen, Chris from the Bay Area, Tony and the other gear guys). The Kid (Daniel), Mark Kranhold,Ken Waterstreet and Greg Vinci were out fishing. Andy came drifted by early and told me that they couldn't take any more because they caught so many shad!