Shad Run newby looking for advice

[Patrick Reilly]

Happy Monday to everybody! Hope you all got a chance to get out on the water this weekend.

I was looking for the collective advice and wisdom of the board. Relatively new at this whole fly-fishing thing. I have a 4 weight Orvis Clearwater with a 5 wt sink/float line and a sinking leader. My experience is limited to catching random things in the tidal basin fishing along the wall, 3-4 inch sunfish at the outflow in 4 mile run and chain bridge from the VA side with Rob's very kind guidance.

I got my first day out on the water this year n Saturday. I showed up to late to get a boat from Fletchers, so headed up to fish north of chain bridge from the Maryland side. I caught a few tiny sun fish in the canal on my way down to the Potomac. Those were sadly the only fish I caught all day. Down at the Potomac, found a great little eddy just south of the Helipad. I could see 20-30 shad just hanging out in the current. Occasionally they would all bolt and do circles around a rock for 3 or 4 minutes, then come back.  I spent 3 hours throwing every fly in my box - green, pink and white shad darts, closuers, orange and green pipe cleaner darts, tiny nymphs, giant red eyes, even the green one that is gimp wrapped around the hook and didn't get a nibble. I put tin weights on the line, then 3 tin weights. I tried double flys. I let it run down stream and then pulled back through. I tried fast strip, slow strip, nothing, not even a nibble. 

I want to go back out Wednesday after work. Any advice? Both fly's, techniques, locations? This might be my last shot before the kid comes, so want to catch at least one shad this year!

Thanks in advance!

Cheers,
Patrick

[Yambag Nelson]

My guess is those weren't shad you were casting at. 

[Rob Snowhite]

Depth and speed of retrieve are the key factors once you have established shad are there. Myself and clients have been wearing stripping guards or bandaids in stripping fingers due to line burning on the retrieve. That's how fast you want to strip, fast enough that the friction will burn you. 

Rock creek was full of herring, white perch, and hickory shad yesterday. 

Sent from my iPhone

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[Ashley Frohwein]

Another noob look for Shad advice here. Will this warm weather slow down/stop the shad bite at all? And about how much longer might the shad run in DC last?

On Monday, April 18, 2016 at 4:05:53 PM UTC-4, Rob Snowhite wrote:

Depth and speed of retrieve are the key factors once you have established shad are there. Myself and clients have been wearing stripping guards or bandaids in stripping fingers due to line burning on the retrieve. That's how fast you want to strip, fast enough that the friction will burn you. 

Rock creek was full of herring, white perch, and hickory shad yesterday. 

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 18, 2016, at 1:25 PM, Patrick Reilly <reil...@gmail.com> wrote:

Happy Monday to everybody! Hope you all got a chance to get out on the water this weekend.

I was looking for the collective advice and wisdom of the board. Relatively new at this whole fly-fishing thing. I have a 4 weight Orvis Clearwater with a 5 wt sink/float line and a sinking leader. My experience is limited to catching random things in the tidal basin fishing along the wall, 3-4 inch sunfish at the outflow in 4 mile run and chain bridge from the VA side with Rob's very kind guidance.

I got my first day out on the water this year n Saturday. I showed up to late to get a boat from Fletchers, so headed up to fish north of chain bridge from the Maryland side. I caught a few tiny sun fish in the canal on my way down to the Potomac. Those were sadly the only fish I caught all day. Down at the Potomac, found a great little eddy just south of the Helipad. I could see 20-30 shad just hanging out in the current. Occasionally they would all bolt and do circles around a rock for 3 or 4 minutes, then come back.  I spent 3 hours throwing every fly in my box - green, pink and white shad darts, closuers, orange and green pipe cleaner darts, tiny nymphs, giant red eyes, even the green one that is gimp wrapped around the hook and didn't get a nibble. I put tin weights on the line, then 3 tin weights. I tried double flys. I let it run down stream and then pulled back through. I tried fast strip, slow strip, nothing, not even a nibble. 

I want to go back out Wednesday after work. Any advice? Both fly's, techniques, locations? This might be my last shot before the kid comes, so want to catch at least one shad this year!

Thanks in advance!

Cheers,
Patrick

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[TurbineBlade]

Observation, observation.  Try to lookout for all folks who are catching them, and watch what they do.  Beth and I had a somewhat slow day on Saturday, but a great day Sunday after taking Scott's advice.  But!  We didn't start really hammering the fish until we noticed a guy and his kid catching fish left and right next to us.  Both of them were fly fishing, and I noticed were not really getting their lines too deep before stripping.  We stopped "counting down" at that point, and mimicked what they were doing (stripping basicallly right after the fly hit the water) and bam -- fish on for the next 2 hours.  

That kid must have had the best day of his life ;).  We enjoyed watching him and figured he caught 2x what we did.  

Gene

On Monday, April 18, 2016 at 4:05:53 PM UTC-4, Rob Snowhite wrote:

Depth and speed of retrieve are the key factors once you have established shad are there. Myself and clients have been wearing stripping guards or bandaids in stripping fingers due to line burning on the retrieve. That's how fast you want to strip, fast enough that the friction will burn you. 

Rock creek was full of herring, white perch, and hickory shad yesterday. 

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 18, 2016, at 1:25 PM, Patrick Reilly <reil...@gmail.com> wrote:

Happy Monday to everybody! Hope you all got a chance to get out on the water this weekend.

I was looking for the collective advice and wisdom of the board. Relatively new at this whole fly-fishing thing. I have a 4 weight Orvis Clearwater with a 5 wt sink/float line and a sinking leader. My experience is limited to catching random things in the tidal basin fishing along the wall, 3-4 inch sunfish at the outflow in 4 mile run and chain bridge from the VA side with Rob's very kind guidance.

I got my first day out on the water this year n Saturday. I showed up to late to get a boat from Fletchers, so headed up to fish north of chain bridge from the Maryland side. I caught a few tiny sun fish in the canal on my way down to the Potomac. Those were sadly the only fish I caught all day. Down at the Potomac, found a great little eddy just south of the Helipad. I could see 20-30 shad just hanging out in the current. Occasionally they would all bolt and do circles around a rock for 3 or 4 minutes, then come back.  I spent 3 hours throwing every fly in my box - green, pink and white shad darts, closuers, orange and green pipe cleaner darts, tiny nymphs, giant red eyes, even the green one that is gimp wrapped around the hook and didn't get a nibble. I put tin weights on the line, then 3 tin weights. I tried double flys. I let it run down stream and then pulled back through. I tried fast strip, slow strip, nothing, not even a nibble. 

I want to go back out Wednesday after work. Any advice? Both fly's, techniques, locations? This might be my last shot before the kid comes, so want to catch at least one shad this year!

Thanks in advance!

Cheers,
Patrick

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[TurbineBlade]

Also meant to add that the part about destroying your hands it spot-on.  My right hand is cut up from handling shad, and the index finger of my both hands is cut where I strip line.  

I'd do it again though -- ;)

Gene

[Richard Farino]

The large back eddy (known as Big Eddie) just below the helipad (locally known as Alien’s Landing) is a good place to fish, but it presents a few challenges:

• The back eddy flow will make the fish face downstream on the side that’s adjacent the shoreline.  The side closest to the river still runs downstream.  Getting the right motion our of your fly can be challenging.
• A majority of the fish you’ll find in there are white perch.  Watch the dorsal spines.  I’ve been stuck a few times
• Hint – there may or may not be some very large fish in there.  They may or may not have lines down the sides of their bodies, and they may or may not be caught with topwater plugs on spinning gear.
• Your 4wt will be way too light for the above opportunity.

R

Richard Farino

District Angling | Washington, DC

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[namfos]

I think we should refer to you as "Yoda," Rich. ;-)

Mark

[Richard Farino]

It's the ears, isn't it?

R

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[namfos]

Ha!

Mark

[Carl Z.]

I've fished to those gizzard shad and had the same luck.  If you were out at the "helipad" and see a bunch of shad backs, it's probably gizzard shad and they don't seem to take a fly.  I have foul hooked a few when my heavily weighted fly went over their backs. 

It's the TPFR version of Snipe hunting: "Hey go over there and see if you can catch one of those Shad".

Carl

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