Spring Shad run and a Surprise!

[Johnsfolly]

April in the mid Atlantic is the time to target the various big rivers and tributaries with shad runs. The primary shad that folks target are american or white shad and hickory shad. In the Susquehanna river the run is nearly all hickory shad. Now the smaller cousins the river herring, aka alewife and blueback herring also make runs at this time of year. All of these shad and herring come into the rivers from the ocean to spawn. During the spawn they are not feeding, but they will have reaction strikes. The most common baits are shad darts, small spoons, jigs with grub tails or other palstic bodies and flies like clousers. Green, chartreuse, yellow, white, red, pink are great colors.

We headed out at 5:50 am to make the drive to Deer creek confluence with the Susquehanna river. When we got there, the spot already had six to seven fisherman. We got our waders on and fished the edge of the best spot where the two waters meet. We both had tandem green/chartreuse darts and green or silver spoon rigs. 

We fished for a while, only bumps were the wood and rocks in front of us. I got really good at getting unstuck from the snags just because I got a lot of practice. Livie hooked and landed the first hickory of the day.

She caught another one before I got anything beside a bump or two. I was able to move closer to the honey hole. I was fishing 10# braid and Livie was fishing 8# Pline flouroclear. I just couldn't get a cast into anything but the edges of the honey hole. I finally got one hooked on the green/chartreuse shad dart and on the board!

Livie caught a third on the silver spoon, which was her biggest of the day.

The guys above us were catching consistently. They could get into that slack water right at the mudline (about 25 yards from the far bank between the guy on the far bank and the overhanging tree) and got hit almost as soon as it hit the water on many casts. 

I switched to 6# nanofil with an 8# leader. Still trying different dart and spoon combos. We had been fishing for several hours and folks upstream of us left as the bite ws slowing. We were able to move up and with my new set-up was able to get into that sweet spot. I caught two more hickories. The second was my biggest and was over 16 inches in length. No photos of that one, but did get a few photos of my third shad.

While the shad bite was winding down, we were seeing several darters. On the trip in, I picked up some redworms. So we tried some microfishing. Everytime we got a glimpse at some darters, the wind would pick up and completely obliterate our ability to see those fish. Tried for about 25 mins with no success and we left around noon. Headed upsteam of Deer crk. I could not go down one of the side roads to park along the creek due to too many cars. So I followed a smaller creek, Buck Branch and parked after a bridge crossing. The creek was clear and had a lot of minnows in it. I didn't have any of my tanagos on this trip, but had some #24 hooks. We saw many colored dace in the water. Livie tried first, but the fish had no interest in our offerings. I spotted a darter and Livie handed me the rod. After many failed attempts to get a hooks set, I finally got it hooked and into the photo bag. This was my first darter caught in MD and my first tessellated darter ever! I was super stoked.

We saw a couple more and Livie tried. No luck on the next female. Then we saw a male in his spawning splendor and it was on. Long story short Livie tried for at least four different males and two females, but never got a hook set. She was super frustrated since many of those fish actively hit the bait. Next time need to bring the tanago hooks. So most of the fish in this creek were eastern blacknose dace and rosyside dace. As I mentioned before they really were not intersted in the baits. There was a small school of rosyside dace that came up from under the bridge and were much more active. I hooked and landed what is my best male rosyside dace to date. So colored up and with breeding turbercles all over his head and body!

Though we didn't catch as many shad as we would have liked, we were successful and the darter and dace were great surprises. Now Livie wants to head back and try for those male darters again. If we don't get heavy rains, then probably next Sat we will try again.

 

 

 

 

[Quillback]

That's pretty neat!  

[netboy]

Brings back memories from trips to my grandparent's house on the Delaware river around Callicoon NY way back in the 50's. The shad would migrate up there and it was about the end of their spawning run. We were primarily fishing for smallmouths and would catch a few, but many of them would die after spawning and would be floating down the river. I do remember that the locals stripped the roe from the females and dumped the rest.

[Johnsfolly]

@netboy we did try white perch roe just last week. Not much of a flavor. Shad roe seems to be a bit more strong tasting at least from the smell of those I used to see at the markets in PA In MD there is no harvest of any shad. I know DE and NC both allow some harvest.

They are fun to catch.

[netboy]

1 hour ago, Johnsfolly said:

@netboy we did try white perch roe just last week. Not much of a flavor. Shad roe seems to be a bit more strong tasting at least from the smell of those I used to see at the markets in PA In MD there is no harvest of any shad. I know DE and NC both allow some harvest.

They are fun to catch.

I remember the ones we caught were spawned out and really skinny so they didn't fight much. I have heard the ones fresh from the sea are great fighters.  

[Johnsfolly]

1 minute ago, netboy said:

I remember the ones we caught were spawned out and really skinny so they didn't fight much. I have heard the ones fresh from the sea are great fighters.  

Those are the only ones that we have caught in the last few years of fishing for them. I enjoy the fight. The hickories are typically less than 2 lbs and they give you a pretty good fight with a few jumps on light tackle. The americans typically are 2 to 4 lbs and they can use the current to their advantage as well during their fights, which are more bulldogish than the hickories.

[Quillback]

9 hours ago, Johnsfolly said:

@netboy we did try white perch roe just last week. Not much of a flavor. Shad roe seems to be a bit more strong tasting at least from the smell of those I used to see at the markets in PA In MD there is no harvest of any shad. I know DE and NC both allow some harvest.

They are fun to catch.

Are the runs in trouble in MD?  Just curious why they don't allow any retention.

[Johnsfolly]

42 minutes ago, Quillback said:

Are the runs in trouble in MD?  Just curious why they don't allow any retention.

River herring seem to be protected in spawning streams up and down the coast. Yet they harvest alewife in the oceans for bait.

The shad are in the MD rivers and streams to spawn. I know that a lot of the MD rivers and streams have had some past or still have issues due to human influence, pollution, habitat degradation, etc. So not allowing harvest may allow reproduction and an increase in population for future runs. Just my conjecture.

In Delaware the majority of shad fishing is in the inlets and bays. Those fish are just feeding and not making any attempts to spawn. There is only one river in DE that gets a spawning run and that river passes through MD first and there is no harvest in that river.

Not sure about NC since those fish are trying to spawn. Maybe just have much higher numbers of returning fish.