Shad 5/08-5/09

Next two day's worth of reports. Wednesday evening I took the boat out with my dad. On the water around 1730 found a school of fish actually holding today, so nice to

find a school of fish holding in an area for a while where I could consistently cast to. They stayed for about 30 mins and I was able to pull two fish out of it. I would have got a few more if it wasn't for about a 8lb striper that kept darting through the school breaking them and and scaring the crap out of em. After about 1830 the wind picked up on us and I couldn't do anymore of my sight fishing. We both ended up just throwing the rods in the rod holders and sitting back and relaxing. From then till 1930 we probably had only two bites. Then after 1930 we were getting bites every 5 mins. Unfortunately 7 out of 10 were short strikes and just HNS. We did managed to lane a few though. Off of the water tonight around 2030 with a total of only maybe 6 or 7 fish to the boat.

Had a couple hours to kill in the afternoon today so back at it again. Brought the boat out with Steven today around 1300 in the afternoon and we spent nearly the first 30 mins to an hour just searching up and down the river looking for fish. They don't seem to be holding much in fishable water during the mid afternoon. Finally found a few fish though dropped anchor and we both banged one out of it pretty quick.

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Steven with his first of the day.

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Me with mine shortly after.

Turned back around to get a few more out of the school. Saw a striper roll through and fish were gone. We stuck it out till 1600 and found one school of probably 1000+ fish in it that swam by in about 5 seconds and never saw them again. Never found anymore fish after that or hooked into any. Took off to make it to school in time.

Shad are here and I'm catching fish every outing, but man is it frustrating to see over 1000 fish swim by me each day and only come out with maybe 5 fish at most. Conditions so far this year are tough. Fish are here, but with the low water making it easier for the stripers to target the fish they wont hold in any lanes to make them easy targets for us to get into any serious numbers. Rumors are the flows will be coming up at the end of this month. Hopefully that comes around pretty quick. Regardless I'll still be out there putting in work for em.

The most depressing thing I have to say about the stripers is they are decent size, but I haven't seen any that are big enough to take a live shad yet. A lot of 5-8lbers and a few 10-15. None 20 or more though. I'll have to find a way to target the ones that are here now just cause they aren't quite big enough for me to get em with a live shad, but with the clear water they wont touch plugs. I'll figure something out eventually.

Till Next Time Guys
Mark