This morning I got a late start but had to go see if I could find another striper or two like we got last week with Jim. I decided to go by myself and see if I could get stuck on a sandbar or something, but I just had to give it a try. This was not a serious fishing day but the river is close by and I'm tired of sitting on my butt watching TV.

At the ramp the water the water is 4'-6' deep but as you get toward the center of the river it shallows out fast. As I move across to a favorite point I'm now only in a foot and half of water and thinking I should turn around. But I gradually get a little deeper and can cast to the other channel. I drop anchor so as to not drift any shallower and cast my first chartruese fly like usual. Expecting only a tap from all the dinks in the river, I get nothing. Again and again I cast but still nothing. It had to be my late start today. I give it almost an hour with not even the slightest tap and decide to call it quits for stripers today.

On the way back in I decided to stop and try a hole where we'd been seeing shad lately. I'd seen them here before as late as September in this same spot. Hard as it is to believe.

I moved above the hole and dropped anchor again in deeper water all of 3' or 4" deep. (better than where I was). I tied on a double fly of pink and flash #6 along with one of Jeff's Bloody Maria's #8 or #10. Now it's just cast and swing and let it sink. And again, and again, and again. Nothing. This has been one of the slowest days I've had in a long time and decide to call it quits.

As I'm pulling the boat out of the water I can look down from the bank and I see the shad I had been hoping for. But I've already got the boat out of the water. And I'm tired, and it's already bright sun bearing down, but I need to catch SOMETHING.

So I get the rod out of the boat and WALK back down the bank and try to cast. Surprise, I get a short cast out and get a hook-up right away. A nice hen shad. Then another cast, and another hook-up. And so it went for the next hour. Almost every cast was a hook-up. Even a couple of double hook-ups (remember I had two flies on).

Then all of a sudden it stopped. I got spoiled real quick with non-stop grabs but it just plain stopped. Maybe the school moved away?
Maybe a big striper came in on the splashing? Who knows? But I had a great last hour of a short fishing day and it's time for lunch.

Amazing what you run into when you least expect it.
Tony