Convergence '19: Shad

Of all the species that converge on the rivers and streams of the Northeast in the spring, very few are both an aggressive and hard fighting fish and an extremely abundant one. Only American shad really match that description. A larger cousin of the river herrings, Alosa sapidissima were once much more abundant than they are now, but are also a relative success story in comparison to river herring. Whereas the river herring abundance is too low to permit harvest, or indeed possession (intentional fishing for of alewife and blueback herring is illegal in CT, including catch and release), shad are abundant enough that harvest is permissible. I have eaten shad, but I was rather underwhelmed... I much prefer to pull on them for a few moments, get them to jump a time or two maybe, then let the return to their migration. 

With my 40 inch striper successfully caught, I felt even more invigorated to explore some, fish new waters this spring run, and fish for some of the other species that I haven't as much over the last few years. One of my goals was to experience a truly good shad bite. I fished for American shad for the first time in 2017 with Ben Bilello. That was fairly late in the run, and though we caught some shad it wasn't an especially good bite. The water was low, very few fresh fish were in the river, and a lot of my expectations were subverted... it was a little strange. (American Shad Brown Lining)

With the intention of getting Noah his lifer American, we chased the shad north to intercept the peek of the run. Fishing some of the same water as I had with Ben, but under much, much different conditions. Better conditions. Equipped with my 11'6" spey rod, I could comfortably reach the far seem in which most shad seemed to be hanging out in throughout the day, and use the length of the rod to mend and manage the drift. Getting the depth, swing speed, retrieve, and depth was key, and the shad would often change what they wanted or where in the run they were in a matter of seconds. Fishing with a spinning rod, Noah struggled to get a take. I've had so many non-flyfishers allude to the idea that fly fishing is what one does when the stop caring about catching a bunch of fish. Well... that's just stupid. It would come as a surprise to these people how numerous the circumstances are in which fly will not only out-fish conventional, but absolute trample it. This was one such circumstance. Some spin casters were catching fish, but not as consistently as I was, and in the end Noah got his lifer American shad on the fly. 

This same bright red fly, tied by Ben, caught my first American shad in 2017

I found that red worked very well throughout the day, then from about 7:00 until 8:30 dark green and red (red at the tail and green on the dropper tag) performed equally well. I had a steady pick of fish all afternoon though, except when we moved trying to find somewhere where the shad were more accessible to a single hand caster, for Noah. But Noah did see a small, totally lit up bowfin during that exploration, so I suppose it was worth it to a degree.

After successfully acquiring his lifer shad,m Noah switched to soaking bait, which really did have the potential to produce something crazy. He ended up with a bunch of American eels and one white sucker. So he had a unique slam of sorts, three highly migratory species with very different strategies. American shad being anadromous, growing to sexual maturity in the open Atlantic and running into freshwater rivers to spawn; white sucker simply making upstream runs to their nursery waters in the same freshwater systems they'll always live in, and American eels being catadromous, growing to sexual maturity in freshwater then swimming to the remote waters of the Sargasso Sea to spawn. It's this fascinating variety that makes spring run fishing so exciting to me.

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