Fletchers, shad, 4-6-14

[HJS]

Fished Fletchers on the Potomac from shore, Sunday, 4-6-14, 10:00am to 3:30pm. Very enjoyable and productive day of shad fishing. I totaled out at 52 hickory shad. From 10am to noon action was slow, maybe a shad ever 20-30 casts. Around noon action ramp up sharply to the point I was catching every 3-4 casts until 3pm. At least half the shad were nice sized females full of roe. Most of the other nearby fishermen, both shore and boat guys, were consistently catching nice hickories too.

Most productive lure was a 1.5” limetreuse twistertail on a 1/8oz glow-red jighead with a ¼ oz bullet weight pegged 2’ about the jig. Other colors also worked well as long as they had a lot of chartreuse/limetreuse on them somewhere.

Water vis was about 2’+, and that was clear enough for hickories to see the lure. Light downriver breeze until noon followed by a light upriver breeze. Flow 4.8’, water temp 53F, HT-2:16pm.

Lot of fishermen there. Looked like all the rental boats were out. Also there were a lot of kayaks, canoes and motor boats cruising the river. Today was a nice reward after such a loooong winter.

[scott taylor]

thanks for the report. great to hear that the shad are running! do you wade there at all or is that way too dicey?

ST

[HJS]

Scot - I do wear hipboots, mostly to deal with shoreline mud and swampy area. The Fletchers area is indeed a difficult and dangerous place to wade. Not to mention that none of the 1000s of boulders in the area have a flat top... they are all topped with a ridge with 45 degree sides. There are a few areas I've come to know enough to wade out a few yards.

[camelbird]

THATS WHAT IM TALKIN ABOUT!

Nice work Howard, spoke with a few more people and it looks like it really improved for you guys on Sunday. Glad to hear!

Curious, were do you get your shad spoons? Anybody local or online?

Thanks!

Justin

[HJS]

justin – Many years ago I found a couple dozen shad spoons below Conowingo Dam when the generators shut down after many days full generation. The newly exposed bottom was littered with days worth of lost terminal tackle. Needless to say I “cleaned up” a bucket full of lost tackle to include all sort of silver and gold spoons. Seems the favorite spoon on the Susky is the Nungesser.
As of recent years I developed a fondness for the Hildebrant shad king spoon in silver and gold (google both for pictures). WalMart use to sell Shad kings but I don’t think they carry them anymore.
With a few of the Nungessers and Shad Kings I will powder paint one side of the spoon, usually the concave side, a bright yellow chartreuse and leave the other side as is.

I will attach a few pics that shows two egg-laden females plus a glimps of the water clarity.

hickory1, 4-6-14.JPGhickory2, 4-6-14.jpg

BTW, I met another Snaggedliner where I was fishing. He beached his kayak and was fishing from shore. Unfortunately he paddled away just before action ramped up. Maybe he paddle to fish another spot. Hope he got into shad at his new location. Maybe he'll chime-in too.

[cedsyaker]

Where do you get the 1.5” limetreuse twistertail on a 1/8oz glow-red jighead?

I couldn't find limetreuse twistertail at either Bass Pro or Tackle Warehouse.

[huizhao85]

I was there sunday from 8-12 and ended up with about 25 hickories and maybe 1 american, still not 100% about identifying them. Lots of fat hickories that were maybe 20 inches or so. I lost a monster that broke the hook on my shad dart, probably a striper based on the way he was taking line.

Biggest hickory of the day:
IMG_20140406_115345.jpg

[HJS]

Where do you get the 1.5” limetreuse twistertail on a 1/8oz glow-red jighead?

I couldn't find limetreuse twistertail at either Bass Pro or Tackle Warehouse.

I bought a 100 count bag of the limetreuse twistertails at a fisherman's flea market years ago and I have about 25 left. But hickory shad really aren't that picky. Any small flashy lure in the 1.5" range will work. Small crappie tube lures also work well and they are available all just about any tackle store. Jig color is not all that important either. WalMart carries all sorts of jighead. I was at WalMart today and they had red jigheads and that's close enough. To answer your jig question, I buy unpainted jigheads and powder paint them myself in hot red, hot pink and chartreuse. Other guys were catching on standard chartreuse/red shad darts, others were using silver spoons. Here is a pic of all the different shad lures I find effective. The limetreuse twistertail I used on Sunday is at the top/right. I bet any of them would have worked equally as well on Sunday

Shad Lures - 1.JPG

The previous 2 years the hot jig was orange/charteuse.
Shad Lures, 3-31-13.jpg

This spoon also worked on Sunday.
Shad Lures - 2.jpg

Using the right lure to catch shad is waaay less important than is where you fish. It's location, location, location. BTW, Fletchers sells all sorts of shad lures but I don't think I saw small soft plastics on their smallish rack of shad lures.

[Runnin]

What's the technique with that big bullet sinker. Are you swimming that jig, or bouncing / dragging it on bottom? I've never fished for shad.

[cedsyaker]

Howard, Thank you!

[HJS]

Runnin - The Potomac in The Fletchers area is surprisingly deep, in the 30'-40' range in many areas, some spots up to 50'. And I can reach these deeps spot from shore. So distance casting is very important. The 2 spots I fished on Sunday nearly all my casts were thrown as far as I could cast within reason and without throwing out my shoulder. At these 2 spots I fished it would take 12-14 seconds for my rig to hit bottom. BUT never let your lure hit bottom!! I'm using 8# Fireline with a 6' leader on a 6'6" medium action rod and a 2500 Shamano reel. All the lures I use are fairly light weight. So the extra weight is a must-have addition to my terminal tackle to get a long cast and to sink to the right depth. When the lure hits the water I do a 5 to 8 second count then start a moderately slow retrieve with twitches all the way in. So I guess my lure is down about 8'-10' below the surface. I use a pointy bullet weight because it's much more resistant to snagging in the rocks.

From the stand-point of losing terminal tackle to the rocks, I might add that shad fishing at Fletchers is very different from shad fishing on the Susquehanna River. On the Susky it's normal for me to lose 5 to 8 lures or more to the rocks in one trip. At Fletchers I can go 2-3 trips before losing one rig.

[Donsail68]

HJS,

Wanted to say many thanks for the awesome info. Will fish there tmw on my kayak.