Jeff’s 2019 AR Shad Reports

[cmcdhuibh]

I'm not to up on this to well but isn't type 8 and T 14 about the same sink rate except one is tapered?

[Jeff C.]

Type 8 = T-11

[Jeff C.]

Fished early before the rain started. Got into double digits but a seal lion cruising up river caused the bite to slow for about an hour. Lots of anglers out and I was only the fly fisherman!

[Jeff C.]

Earle and I got over 40 to the boat and LDRed about half as many on a float today. I was using 30 feet of LC13 and Earle was using a 300 grain DC sink tip line. You have to get down deep!

[Jeff C.]

Did some scouting in the upper river with Andy in his jet Lowe this morning. We got a dozen or so shad and Andy got a double fishing a two fly rig. Shad are starting to show up but not in big numbers like mid river. Wading is very limited with the 10K cfs flow and you have to be careful. I took a dunk this afternoon when some submerged roots tripped me up. Good thing it wasn’t in deep fast moving water!

[Jeff C.]

Got into double digits and even 3 doubles (using a 2 fly rig) this morning. This all went south when a sea lion showed up and started raising havoc. The bite went dead for about 45 minutes after the sea lion left. Tried several upper river spots this afternoon but didn't get a bump.

[Jeff C.]

Went out early and got into double digits before it got crowded. Landed a big hen over 20” long and about 4 lbs on a Firecracker. She was thick. The bite was a little slower than yesterday. Tried a few spots up river and caught only one. There’s fish in the upper river but only small pods that are scattered all over the place.

[dave earl]

Hey Jeff
These shad posts are a big inspiration to me, thanks! And thanks to Bill for getting the forum back online.
I missed it when it was down.

[Jeff C.]

You’re welcome Dave. I was going through withdrawals when the Forum was down! I forgot to mention that I met a fly fisherman named Jerry while fishing yesterday morning. He had never caught a shad before so I gave him a couple of flies and some pointers.

[Jeff C.]

Fished the upper river and caught some shad during the day. Most were on the Firecracker but got a few on the Maria. Went out this evening for a couple of hours with Andy in his jet Lowe and we put over 20 to the boat. They all took the Firecracker except a couple on the Maria. The Wet Pinky worked for Andy when the sun got off the water.