Hi Sean,
That’s me! I was throwing a basic chartreuse shad dart that I picked up from District Angling all morning. I would have tried black first since the water was pretty murky, but I didn’t have any, and it obviously didn’t matter.
I was also using a full sink line (275gr) with a short leader—2ft of 20lb mono and 2 feet of 10lb tippet. I was trying to get as deep as possible so I had a split shot halfway down my leader and was letting my line sink for a good 8-15 seconds before stripping.
Past weekends the shad were hitting for me on super fast strips, but yesterday it seemed like they were hitting the dart on the pause and drop. Unfortunately, I didn’t find any Americans, but the Hickories made for a fun morning.
The fiancée comes in handy when the net’s out of reach (honestly I appreciate that she’s even willing to come before sunrise at all) haha!
Hope that helps and always feel free to shout if you see me out there again!
Daniel