2016 shad run is one to remember for us

[TurbineBlade]

This picture sums it up nicely:

[Jim White]

Gene,

Those hand wounds look very familiar! Yes, it has been a a shad run to remember. While Ron and I did not catch as many fish as you and Beth did today, we caught more than our fair share. A great day on the water!

Cheers,

Jim 

[Jim White]

Oh, and thank you for sharing your seam with us!

On Sunday, April 24, 2016 at 3:28:00 PM UTC-4, TurbineBlade wrote:

[TurbineBlade]

Absolutely!  Man, what a fun day!  I'd say you and Ron were hooked up as often as not based upon what I saw -- our seam or not.  ;)  About 1/2 way through, I swapped my 8' fenwick for a 7' fenwick (ff706) just to be easier on my fighting arm.  I love that little rod -- 

A quick tip from Scott the other day after we had a slower day really helped!  Fishing this weekend was just absurd, and we otherwise may not have gone out again.  It's good to get more mileage out of those DC licenses.  

God I'm exhausted.  

Great talking to you Jim!  

Gene

[Rob Snowhite]

Heard Rebecca landed a dog today. Some dog swam up to her paddleboard and climbed on. Our morning started great and slowed to boring by late afternoon. Yesterday we couldn't keep the schoolies and white perch off the damsel.

Sent from my iPhone

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[TurbineBlade]

That's great!  We had a random German shepherd get into our canoe one day on the SF Shenandoah. He was as friendly as can be, luckily.   

Today had a few brief lulls in action, but not many and not for too long.  Friday was the same for us, but we left earlier to escape DC traffic.  Today we left because we were tired and Beth wanted to eat something besides donuts.  When we left, fish were still active both times.  

That damsel really is a great fly.  I only used the damsel today and aside from the shad, ended up with a few small stripers and one 'medium' striper......which doesn't even begin to compare with some of the fish Alex and others have pics of down at the boathouse, but it's the biggest I've caught on the fly anyway.  

It makes sense that the shad go out of their way to attack damsel nymphs.  All biologists will tell you will that "murders" (the technical term) of damsel nymphs repeatedly dive to 15-20' to gorge themselves on shad eggs this time of year, which directly affects recruitment.  That's 100% fact -- .  

Gene

On Sunday, April 24, 2016 at 7:34:27 PM UTC-4, Rob Snowhite wrote:

Heard Rebecca landed a dog today. Some dog swam up to her paddleboard and climbed on. Our morning started great and slowed to boring by late afternoon. Yesterday we couldn't keep the schoolies and white perch off the damsel.

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 24, 2016, at 7:25 PM, TurbineBlade <doubl...@gmail.com> wrote:

Absolutely!  Man, what a fun day!  I'd say you and Ron were hooked up as often as not based upon what I saw -- our seam or not.  ;)  About 1/2 way through, I swapped my 8' fenwick for a 7' fenwick (ff706) just to be easier on my fighting arm.  I love that little rod -- 

A quick tip from Scott the other day after we had a slower day really helped!  Fishing this weekend was just absurd, and we otherwise may not have gone out again.  It's good to get more mileage out of those DC licenses.  

God I'm exhausted.  

Great talking to you Jim!  

Gene

On Sunday, April 24, 2016 at 6:38:00 PM UTC-4, Jim White wrote:

Oh, and thank you for sharing your seam with us!

On Sunday, April 24, 2016 at 3:28:00 PM UTC-4, TurbineBlade wrote:

This picture sums it up nicely:

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[Jim White]

Damsel nymph?

Picture please.

I fished (nearly) everything I had in my shad box (and in several colors). Yellow clouser was my most consistent performer. However, we were not hooking up with anything near the consistency you were.

Break---

1. How far up the Potomac do the shad run? Do they go up past Chain Bridge?

2. Are the American shad a separate run or are they running now and I'm just not catching them?

3. In our boat yesterday, Ron also landed a small striper. Has their run begun in earnest or do we still have a few weeks to go?

On Sunday, April 24, 2016 at 3:28:00 PM UTC-4, TurbineBlade wrote:

[Rob Snowhite]

http://flyfishingconsultant.blogspot.com/2014/04/snowhite-damsel-step-by-step.html?m=1

Sent from my iPhone

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[TurbineBlade]

Sure, it's a Rob Snowhite pattern.  Those are a few from my old worn-out "shad" box -- the chartreuse ones were actually tied by Rob, some 3-4 years ago when I first picked up a fly rod and didn't tie yet.  

I make no secret that I'm a much bigger believer in techniques than fly patterns, but hey -- you have to tie something on right?  Honestly, that's a really good one -- I like it a lot.  Beth and I were both fishing it heavily this weekend and laughing about how crappy it can get and still work (e.g., 1 herl fiber and 1/2 a strand of flash left).  

If Rob ever does it at a beer tie, it's well-worth learning.  

Gene

[TurbineBlade]

Beat me to it!  ;)

On Monday, April 25, 2016 at 9:27:54 AM UTC-4, Rob Snowhite wrote:

http://flyfishingconsultant.blogspot.com/2014/04/snowhite-damsel-step-by-step.html?m=1

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 25, 2016, at 9:04 AM, Jim White <jrwh...@gmail.com> wrote:

Damsel nymph?

Picture please.

I fished (nearly) everything I had in my shad box (and in several colors). Yellow clouser was my most consistent performer. However, we were not hooking up with anything near the consistency you were.

Break---

1. How far up the Potomac do the shad run? Do they go up past Chain Bridge?

2. Are the American shad a separate run or are they running now and I'm just not catching them?

3. In our boat yesterday, Ron also landed a small striper. Has their run begun in earnest or do we still have a few weeks to go?

On Sunday, April 24, 2016 at 3:28:00 PM UTC-4, TurbineBlade wrote:

This picture sums it up nicely:

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[Jeffrey Silvan]

I was out Saturday from early afternoon til 6 pm. It was pretty slow action right in front of Fletchers for the first hour or so, although I stuck the biggest pig of an American shad I have ever seen. Unfortunately, I didn't get it to the net, but at least Thomas was there to witness it. Nearly everything was on a chartreuse shad dart. After that, I rowed as far upstream as I could, which was fairly close to Chain Bridge. Scott had pulled up a big striper as an incidental catch earlier in the day, so I tied on a chartreuse/white clouser with a pink shad fly dropper. The majority of my catches were all on the clouser until the very end of the day when everything took the pink dart. Upstream was way better action. I had one stretch of 15 casts in a row with a fish or a bite, and another stretch where I stopped counting at 25 in a row. Nearly everything was an average size hickory, although I did pluck one decent size American.

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[Scott Stankus]

Thanks for the shout out, Jeff! Here's a photo of the Striper by-catch! Thanks to Thomas Perkins for the net and the photo!

--Scott

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[TurbineBlade]

Nice striper Scott!  That beats the tar out of mine -- 

Gene

On Monday, April 25, 2016 at 10:33:02 AM UTC-4, Scott S wrote:

Thanks for the shout out, Jeff! Here's a photo of the Striper by-catch! Thanks to Thomas Perkins for the net and the photo!

--Scott

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 25, 2016, at 9:39 AM, Jeffrey Silvan <jeffre...@gmail.com> wrote:

I was out Saturday from early afternoon til 6 pm. It was pretty slow action right in front of Fletchers for the first hour or so, although I stuck the biggest pig of an American shad I have ever seen. Unfortunately, I didn't get it to the net, but at least Thomas was there to witness it. Nearly everything was on a chartreuse shad dart. After that, I rowed as far upstream as I could, which was fairly close to Chain Bridge. Scott had pulled up a big striper as an incidental catch earlier in the day, so I tied on a chartreuse/white clouser with a pink shad fly dropper. The majority of my catches were all on the clouser until the very end of the day when everything took the pink dart. Upstream was way better action. I had one stretch of 15 casts in a row with a fish or a bite, and another stretch where I stopped counting at 25 in a row. Nearly everything was an average size hickory, although I did pluck one decent size American.

On Mon, Apr 25, 2016 at 9:04 AM, Jim White <jrwh...@gmail.com> wrote:

Damsel nymph?

Picture please.

I fished (nearly) everything I had in my shad box (and in several colors). Yellow clouser was my most consistent performer. However, we were not hooking up with anything near the consistency you were.

Break---

1. How far up the Potomac do the shad run? Do they go up past Chain Bridge?

2. Are the American shad a separate run or are they running now and I'm just not catching them?

3. In our boat yesterday, Ron also landed a small striper. Has their run begun in earnest or do we still have a few weeks to go?

On Sunday, April 24, 2016 at 3:28:00 PM UTC-4, TurbineBlade wrote:

This picture sums it up nicely:

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[Yambag Nelson]

They go up past chain bridge but I don't know if anyone ever fishes for them much past the falls.  There is a fish ladder about a mile above chain bridge that the shad supposedly use, but again, I doubt anyone really fishes for them above the falls.

There are Americans in the river now (as there have been for over a month) but they generally seem to prefer a much slower and deeper presentation.  They seem to prefer certain areas but that could just be my random luck. This year especially it seems like the hickories prefer a fast retrieve, so you will probably have to be willing to sacrifice numbers in you want to "target" Americans.  That's what I did yesterday and I caught one fish (a large American).  It was sunny and low tide when I was out which may have explained my lack of success but I was fishing VERY slowly. 

There have been large stripers in the river for over a month, but it seems like the smaller ones are showing up in greater numbers now.  They are more inclined to hit a fly than the big ones from earlier in the season. 

On Monday, April 25, 2016 at 9:04:12 AM UTC-4, Jim White wrote:

[TurbineBlade]

Good stuff to know -- 

Gene

[TurbineBlade]

Hey, any of you wear finger protection?  Do band-aids or something cheap work? 

This sucks -- I'll never get into SW or musky fishing.  (Plus, I can only cast 25'). 

Gene

[Jeffrey Silvan]

I don't wear anything for shad fishing, but in the salt, I wear sun gloves. They give protection from, well, the sun, but also gives your fingers/hands protection from the line getting ripped out by a tarpon that wants to make Usain Bolt look like a sloth.

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[Richard Farino]

Figer sleeves from Buff or TFO.  I always carry a roll of CoFlex with me.  Have had too many finger burns during hardcore Cape Lookout trips chasing Charlie Tuna.

R

[Art Friedlander]

Looking for advice on fishing for Kings.

Planning on taking 10 wt and 13.3 8 wt Spey.

But want to take a spinning rod for backup if hand/shoulder should give say no more.  Not an experienced spinning tackle person so looking for advice.

Plan is to use flies with the spinning rod.  Any suggestions for rod size?  Medium/Heavy vs. Heavy and for lines to use: 20 to 40 lbs?  Braid?

thanks for any help.

Art

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From: Richard Farino <rfa...@gmail.com>

To: Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders <tidal-potoma...@googlegroups.com>

Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2016 11:15 AM
Subject: Re: {Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders} Re: 2016 shad run is one to remember for us

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[arthur...@gmail.com]

We're do you pan on fishing? 

I'm glad to see another Art on the board.

Art ( the one and only)

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[Art Friedlander]

Alaska on Aleutian peninsula

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From: "arthur...@gmail.com" <arthur...@gmail.com>
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Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2016 10:28 PM
Subject: Re: {Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders} Re: King Salmon

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