Shad

[Guest]

Folks, went to Lower Illinois yesterday and found a shad kill had occurred. Caught 25 or so fish, but none of a white streamer. What's that all about. There was no evidence to me they were feeding on the shad. Shouldn't that be obvious to even an untrained eye???

[DaddyO]

We had another post about that earlier. It seems that some think that there were so much shad in the system that the Trout were tired of it and were looking for anything different.

[Hopper]

When I fished last week monday and wednesday there were quite a few shad in the water, both floating on top and in the water column and did not see any evidence the trout were feeding on them, so I went with midges.

Gregg

[OKFlyFisher44]

I wonder if any resident stripers were feeding on them??

[dgames]

I was fishing with Arkinok yesterday.

We got to the gravel parking lot below the dam right as they were blowing the horn to signal they were shutting down generation. As the water started to fall, we started wading out. These things were everywhere. Drifting dead, or twitching on the suface. We couldn't believe how many there were. I figured the trout would be just tearing them up, so I quickly took off my elk hair caddis with bh midge dropper rig and put on a shad bead head streamer expecting a feeding frenzy. Amazingly, there was no sign of anything feeding on the shad.

In a hour and half or so of stubbornly fishing the shad pattern, I did manage to get a couple or so on a "shad" jig, but they came with a lot of work. Once I switched to a midge, the action immediately picked up.

This one looked pretty stuffed. However, none of the one I caught on midges later looked as stuffed as this one.

What was really crazy was that an hour or so after the dam shut off, fish started surface feeding like crazy on some kind of midge while shad are still floating by with regularity. Why would the trout spend their energy on midges with the shad going by? Its like going to an all you can eat steak buffet and bypassing the steak for saltine crackers from the salad bar!

[BFTMASTER]

The fish I cleaned Sunday were packed with shad. Still no hits on shad patterns. Go with bright colors and action. Twitch those beads and glow balls. Afternoon had good topwater bite on Dunns. This weeks stockers were the only thing active, bigger fish i guess were full and taking it easy.

[BFTMASTER]

Fished Wed. AM: Fishing was a little better, shad patterns working again as no generation occured, therefore the water was not littered with them. Some quality fish showed up later in the morning. Fish deep, near the bottom. Emerger patterns work down there when you are seeing fish rise but the won't hit dries. Let it swing behind you for a good while before casting again. Cast to much=no fish. i watched a guy cast his butt off and catch nothing....let it swing and hold for a minute or to behind you. Mid Day seems to be happening more than morning....?

[BFTMASTER]

Today the flyfisherman outfished spinfisherman and baitfisherman. Hot patterns were olive wooly-buggers and just about anything that did not resemble a shad. lots of people....if you go, go early and claim your territory.