Little One on Shad

Deni's little cousin just turned 8 and for her birthday she asked Deni for a fishing rod, so Deni and I went to Wal-mart to get her her first Barbie rod

complete with Barbie tackle box. Deni looked at a basic kit and asked if we should just buy this for her? I told her all of the kits here are just filled with useless crap I would rather buy her individual things and throw it all in the tackle box. Of course I just got into a mode and started grabbing things left and right. Had to remember I'm shopping for an 8 year old and not myself. Told Deni to stop me at any time, she didn't though. With just what I thought was basic essentials for trout and a couple bass lures we made it out of there spending $70 on this little girl who we don't even know is going to like fishing or not. Needless to say though she loved her gift and was having a blast learning how to cast in the front yard.

5/11/13 Deni and I took her out on the boat for a shad session. Saturday Rafters were freaking everywhere!!! I know its a Saturday, but I was not expecting it to be this busy until school gets out for summer. The shad have been pretty spooky recently with the low water and I thought for sure even though rafters haven't been known to spook fish in the past they would today. We started fishing deeper water to wait out the rafters. Fished for an hour for nothing. I dropped off the girls on the shore so they could swim for a while while I searched around for the fish. Made it down to my usual spot to find my friend Dave on the shore who told me he has been slamming em casting right next to the rafters for the past hour now. Damn I missed out on that one. Ran back up got the girls and got on top of the school and started casting for em.

Finally after weeks into the shad season now I today I finally am seeing fish holding in lanes on a consistent basis. I hooked into one pretty quick and farmed it right at the boat. Megan got bored of casting pretty quick as you could imagine most children do. I just casted her rod out and left it in the rod holder and before long that little thing was doubled over and she had her first fish ever on the line.

She had a blast trying to reel that feisty little bullet in, yelling at me the whole time, "Net em Net em!!!" We got that fish in and I was trying to get her or at least get Deni to hold the fish next to her to get a picture with her first fish. Poor thing though I've never seen a kid so afraid of fish in my life. She was absolutely terrified of the thing. I snapped a picture right before tears were shed.

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She was a little shaken up for a while, but with a little love and support from Deni and she was watching me catching and land fish without getting hurt, she came around and wasn't terrified of them anymore. She still didn't want to be anywhere near one though.

I managed to get onto a fair amount watching the schools swim by me every 5 mins or so. Megan got back to casting eventually and landed her very first stick fish.

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Very proud of that catch.

Megan actually had a lot of hits leaving her rod in the rod holder. Throughout the night she landed 4 and farmed 2 or 3.

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Finally got her to smile in a picture.

I managed to land 7-8 and farm almost just as many. Deni missed a lot of hits, but was having a hard time hooking up. She was keeping busy helping Megan though and netting her fish for her.

Off of the water around 2000. Definitely the best night yet for me out of the season. If I get one more successful night like this (I'm going tonight so we'll see what the verdict is then) I will comfortable say season is finally in full swing and the shad are biting.

If anyone wants to come up and fish for shad I am fishing for em right now 6-7 days out of the week, typically in the evenings. Give me a call and we'll work out a plan.

I'll let you guys know how it goes

Till then
Mark