Picked up my buddy Ethan again and we were on the water on my toon by 0600. We ran around for a bit looking for school of shad to slam. I love fishing the AR for shad so much man. UL gear, crystal clear water, and these low water conditions make for some amazing sight fishing opportunities. We see shad swimming undernearth us right away, but we see them in these very tight schools of hundreds of fish like they are in a massive bait ball, we would cast into them and not a single one would bite. Then right as the school passes, there she is, "The Tank!" Hot on there asses she was following that school every time we saw them. We followed them for a while, but that school of shad was never sitting still and they wouldn't bite so we had to find some more shad.
We found a few area's where we could see the shad spread out throughout their lanes.
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Its hard to see in the picture I know, but if you can pick out the shadow's there are probably 30 shad in this picture.
Once we found them it was just a matter of putting a jig in front of them.
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I even got my first shad on my fly rod
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The shad bite was on fire and if we were just targeting shad the day could absolutely could not be going any better, but were not. We were after the small bait sized fish, but for the most part we were only landing 2+lb hens. Not wanting to deal with the long time it takes to fight one if we would see one grab out jig we would just wait for her to spit it so we didn't have to deal with the 5+mins it takes to land one of those hogs on UL gear. We see the small males that we want, but most of them aren't biting, . . . . why?
Then we see tank roll through and all of our shad we were slamming scatter and take off, oh thats why haha. Most of these shad are terrified. Along with tank we know about at least 4 other fish in the area ranging from 8-20lbs and all are on the prowl for food (again if this wasn't outcast I wouldn't be telling anyone this). I do get some bait sized ones eventually and throughout the day, mostly in the morning-early afternoon. I get 5 runs on a live shad. The first three, striper picked up the shad I grabbed the rod out of the rod holder, then the striper dropped it and never came back. Sorry, but at this point I'm not believing that you would wait for them to stop and them go on a second run, because this so called "second run" has not happened for me. The forth run striper picks it up, I grab my rod, he runs for 20 seconds, I slam the hook and come back with bite mark riddled shad. Another thing people have been telling me is I need a treble in the back of the shad, which I have been vetoing, because I believe that the striper could possibly feel the treble and drop it and trebles for bait fishing are just straight up evil to fish and I really don't want to end up killing an amazing fish like that. Plus I don't even have any trebles.
Frustration over ruled my thoughts though so I grabbed a popper that I never use and grabbed the treble off of a popper to add to my shad after missing my last fish. Later in the Early evening I see about a 10lb striper harassing my shad that I'm fighting on my fly rod, man if that bad boy grabbed my shad and I landed him on the fly rod like I did with my UL last year I would be ecstatic. Too bad I had a 3lb female on that was just too big for him. Shortly later though I got another bait fish out and had my fifth run off the day. Let him go for a bit, I set the hook . . . . . holy shit finally FISH ON!!!!!! . . . . . pop my leader breaks. FUCK!!!!!!!!!!! I fail at life, I'm a terrible fisherman, all that other crap, rage quit.
After that I sat there in grief for about 10 mins thinking wtf happened? all of my knots held, I don't remember any weak spots in my leader, maybe it just wasn't meant to be. stuck it out the rest of the day still killing the shad. I traded a few people off and on the toon to get some more people on some shad.
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Deni came out and slammed a few
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Adam came out and got on some as well.
Ethan hopped back on and we were trading off on slamming them shad on the fly. Ethan won the big fish award of the day with this 4 1/2 lb shad.
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Ethan had a striper pick his live shad up late in the evening, but it never took off with it. Off of the water at 2100. 16 hours on the water trying for "The Tank." Man what a day. I had my chances, but it just didn't happen. Hardly caring for the shad and throwing most away because they were too big, between Ethan and I we still landed around 100 shad just estimating on a number.
Disheartened and hating myself I still just have to keep trying. Till then maybe I need to upgrade my line or something I don't know we'll see.
Till Next Time Guys
Mark
p.s. I takes a lot for my to get sun burnt since I've spent my whole life in the sun outside fishing, but I am pretty red at the moment from all the time in the sun. All worth it though.
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