Back From Oregon and Back to Shad

My trip to Oregon was very cool but unfortunately due to weather I couldn't really get any fishing in. With the need to do some kind of fishing though and the strong craving for a fish fry my buddy Ethan and I went off to Herbert's pond in Canyonville to see what we could get into. A buddy of Ethan's said he caught a few yellow perch out of there a few days ago so that was our main target fish. I tried for bass first with some spooks and a senko, but I didn't get any love on that. We ended up just using some small size 8 bait hooks tipped with about a cenimeter long piece of power worm and just went to town on the bluegills. We did a lap around the pond catching dozens of bluegills keeping any that were handsize or at least big enough to get some meat off of. We did a lap around the pond I ended up getting two Large Mouth bass pushing 3 inches, Woo!!! I'd like to see you do that, haha. After a lap around the pond Ethan did manage to get a small 4 inch yellow perch though.



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Ethan won the day with catching the one and only target species. It was also Ethan's first yellow perch which was cool. We eneded up with 8 keeper hand sized bluegills to take home out of easily 100+ fish we caught between the two of us over 3 hours of fishing. Made a nice little snack for us when we got back home.

I got back home Wednesday evening and Thursday morning I planned on just sleeping in getting a feel for being home again. My dad calls me at 0900 yelling at me, "Mark lets get some fishing in this afternoon before you brothers graduation!!!" So I roll out of bed and we take off for Rossmoor. We get there at 1200 and fishing as expected mid afternoon was indeed slow. I get my first bite though around 1245 and the fish broke me off 10ft from the bank. Around 1500 I got into a nice school and I had 4 hook ups in 4 cast.



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I love ultralight fishing =)



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All small males today.

I ended with 5 and my dad only had 1 or 2. We had to leave around 1630 to go and watch my little brother's and my step brother's Highschool Graduation.



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Their Graduation had fireworks and everything man it was a cool event.

Anyways the next day My dad and I went back out to Rossmoor to get into some more shad. We picked up Ethan and Daryl on the way and got the whole gang out on the water. I heard the flows came back up today from 5000 cfs yesterday to close to 8000 cfs today. I was hoping it wouldn't effect fishing too much so I could get Ethan on his first shad.

We show up around 1600 and Daryl hooks up right away good sign, but nothing happened for sometime after that. We all experimented with different weighted split shots, distances, drifts, and everything we could think of to get in the right zone and get fish biting. Daryl finally finds the right drift and starts consistantly getting some fish. After a while Ethan hooks up with his First American shad.



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Nicer female.

We were all just talking/joking around with each other having a good time, after a while though I realize it was 1800, 2 hours have gone by and I haven't even caught a fish, WTF is going on??? I double check what Daryl is doing, I look at Ethan's set up, see how far they are casting . . . . yup I'm doing the exact same thing they are, so I should be getting them too. Then daryl gets one, and another, Ethan hooks up, I can hear my dad hook one down the way, Daryl gets another, Ethan gets another, and I am still fishless =(

I admit I am a slave to new technology and my head is usually always buried in my phone and often while shad fishing I am texting during drifts and I just have a finger on the line feeling for a bite. Daryl made the comment to me I wasn't texting today, probably why I wasn't catching fish, so I pulled out my phone and messed around on that for a while, but still nothing. 1845 came around I was about to say screw it and just toss for stripers the rest of the night and then I finally get my first fish. I didn't get skunked I was happy. I did miss a few other bites, but tonight just wasn't my night.

Another fellow fisherman, Dave, walked down who knew Daryl, Daryl was out last night after I had left for my brother's grad and he saw him trying a live shad for a striper, but Daryl had to leave early in the night so he never saw if he got one or not. We asked him how he did and he just looked at us with the biggest grin on his face. He pulled out his phone and showed us all a picture of a massive 35lb 42 inch striper he caught out there the night before. I wish I could post that picture for you guys.

With seeing that I just said Shad didn't love me today, I put down my UL rod and grabbed my swim bait rod. I casted my regular white swimbait with a 1/2 ounce head on it for the rest of the night. Fished until 2030 for nothing. I heard one striper boil on something. Dave had decent hit on a live shad, but it didn't take it. Daryl ended with 12, Ethan and my dad both got 6, and I had 1. The flows didn't effect anyone else, but man it sure messed with me. Oh well always great to get out on the water and spend time with friends.

Till next time
Mark