Stripers with a surprise hickory shad

[Charlie Church]

I went out fishing dock lights the other night with a few buddies in Lynnhaven Inlet (Virginia Beach). If done right, it's a pretty easy way to get on a good amount of schoolies. 

My first fish of the night ended up being a hickory shad. Apologies for the crappy photo. It ate a 4 inch purple / black streamer and definitely caught us off guard. 

Shouldn't these be in freshwater right now? Lynnhaven is a saltwater inlet so I can't imagine them spawning in it compared to say the James/Nottoway/Potomac.

I have caught them before in the light lines in the winter at the HRBT but this was definitely a first.

[Andrew Sarcinello]

One time at Indian River Inlet in DE, I caught 3 hickory shad on live minnows...wouldn't surprise me if they have a predatory mode that gets flipped on sometimes.

[Gregg DiSalvo]

i've been doing a decent amount of shad fishing this year in the Occoquan, and am starting to believe that these fish are either super irritable, or are sometimes feeding.   


Everything I've ever read or heard about shad is that they are strictly in these rivers to spawn and that the bright flies we are pulling in front of them are eliciting a reactionary, angry strike.  I believe this is certainly true, but I will admit that I am wavering slightly.  Lately i have been letting my flies sit on the surface right next to the boat and quite often a shad will come out of the depths to take one.  It seems they are moving 5-10 feet out of their way to take a fly that is just sitting.  Maybe the brightness is catching the sin and they are curious, but it certainly looks like feeding.  Any ideas from those much more knowledgeable?

Gregg

On Tuesday, May 1, 2018 at 9:47:42 AM UTC-4, Charlie Church wrote:

[Parker]

Gregg, I'm in the same boat. On Wednesday I was at Chain Bridge and I watched hickory shad take swipes at schooling minnows in the shallows. It definitely looked like intentional feeding. 

[Rob Snowhite]

Shad are mostly of not always filter feeders- they live on plankton found in the ocean. Hickory or American have been known to eat small fish. I’d have to look for my notes from shad podcasts for the answer. 

Schools of minnows were split up by shad near shore yesterday. First time I’ve seen them chase something other than a fly. The white perch then crashed the broken up schools to feed. 

Sent from my iPhone

On May 4, 2018, at 4:21 PM, Gregg DiSalvo <grdi...@gmail.com> wrote:

i've been doing a decent amount of shad fishing this year in hey the Occoquan, and am starting to believe that these fish are either super irritable, or are sometimes feeding.   

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[Charlie Church]

Yea, I think I agree with all of the above.

To add onto this, probably 5 years ago in November Parker and I got a handful on silverside flies fishing the lightline at the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel. It was to the point where you could target them by letting a silverside pattern sit in the light line and not move.

[chad tokowicz]

thats sweet!  Nice mixed bag.

As for the rest of the talk, last summer I got into a good sized school of striped bass with Hickory Shad Mixed in. Fishing the rip on the outgoing tide produced a fish of either speices on almost every cast (schoolies). but on that end, they were probably on the same bait as the stripers and due to the size of the striped bass they were probably not really focused on muching on the shad. 

On Tuesday, May 1, 2018 at 9:47:42 AM UTC-4, Charlie Church wrote:

[Andrew Sarcinello]

I just remembered that I also tangled with a few at night near some docks in Chincoteague a long time ago. They were fairly small but charged a black clouser.