There are many things the year 2020 could be known for. Many, many things. But in my mind, 2020 will forever be the year of the greatest hickory shad blitz in the history of Southern New England. If you are a surfcaster or saltwater fly angler and fished in the fall season of this year, you probably didn't miss it. It wasn't a one location blitz, or a single day event, but a near coast-wide event that has spanned weeks. From what I'm hearing it may still be in progress down south in New Jersey and even as far as South Carolina. It isn't really a singular event, but this year without question gave up the most stellar hickory shad fishing I've ever experienced.
I intercepted the blitz in the final days of October on my home turf. I was fishing water I knew well, water I'd seen so much action in over the years -plenty of hickory blitzes included- but nothing like this. On the 28th I was on my own, and hickories were my first priority. That said, I started out taking quick looks at a few places that used to routinely hold big stripers in the fall. They are no longer as productive and I subsequently found little in the way of fish. I was then fully focused on shad.
It was slow at first, not a notable blitz at all, but I was picking off some fish. Hickories battle magnificently, often being compared to baby tarpon because of their acrobatics. I've caught both, that's really not as accurate a comparison as one might think. Frankly I think fisherman are far too caught up in the idea of comparing species ("poor man's tarpon," "poor man's bonefish," "poor man's salmon") instead of just taking a fish species with it's own merits. Hickories are awesome fish and a hell of a lot of fun, that's all that matters. And though I definitely wasn't hammering them, I'd gotten 10 of them before the sun set and was pretty pleased with that.
With the sky now darkening and the little school under the bridge I'd been fishing pretty disturbed because I was catching them, I decided to make a move. I didn't go far but oftentimes a mile or two makes a huge difference. My first five casts at this new spot made it clear that something special was going on as each got at least one take and resulted in a large hickory shad to hand. That didn't change for the next hour and a half. I was catching fish continuously for the rest of my time fishing that night. It just never stopped. A swung grizzly Homer Rhode Seaducer was my the best method, though I'd started out with a Dave Bitters Baymen Clouser which was just a bit too big.
I left with the front of my waders slime and scale caked, but I wasn't satisfied. I wanted to see what I could feel and hear occurring in the darkness. The next day the conditions were different, it was warm but very rainy and windy. This time it was Noah and I. We went straight to the spot, and it was immediately clear that chaos was underway. There were hickories, there were stripers, there was bait spraying and predators swirling in the wind disturbed muddy water. We were into fish right away. The hickories were often leaping on the take, which lead to plenty of missed strikes but was so spectacular it was hard to care. They were doing this to the natural bait too, and at times you could look out over the channel and see dozens of iridescent fish leaping into the air. This was without a doubt one of the coolest things I'd seen all season.
The stripers were mostly working in a pocket where wind was blowing white bait into shallow water and along a rip rap bank where some schoolies of peanut bunker were. At times they drew my attention away from the shad, and I did catch plenty of bass as well.
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| Seaducer in traditional colors. This simple old saltwater fly has become such a key fly in my arsenal. |
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| I often break into my stash of black and purple redfish flies when fishing for stripers in murky water, the same sorts of flies I'd fish somewhere like Mosquito Lagoon. |
Though the stripers blowing up the in the pocket were exiting, the shad were still the headliners. I had never seen so many of them.
I rarely seek anything resembling peace in fishing but saltwater fishing especially. Even in the long, quiet nights of spring that sooth my soul after an icy winter, my greatest hope is to have a large striped bass shatter the peace completely and give me an adrenaline rush that will last days. It's days like the second of this great shad blitz that stand out. Wind and rain made simply being outside for an extended period of time uncomfortable and there was so much going on it was almost overstimulating. Noah and I were riding high on the phenomenal fishing. It was gloriously exciting chaos. Peace isn't what I seek when I'm fishing, and though I do often find it, it's the chaos that keeps me wanting more. Because damn, was that ever fun. We caught dozens of big hickories that hit and jumped like madmen and we were the only ones there experiencing that mayhem. I'd like to do that again some day.
Oh, what fun guys!
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