Great Shad fishing and Good Trout Fishing: Spring in Nova Scotia

Shad fishing has been spotty to say the least. I have been out a few times this past week and success has varied from nothing, to “too many to tell because it will sound like BS”.

I have also had some luck with trout. I picked up three yesterday and a handful of shad. The smaller male shad are well up the river and some spawning activity is going on.

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The males are smaller than the females by almost half but are tremendous fun. This one jumped twice and had me into my backing on the first run.

The preferred colour seems to vary with each group of fish. What has been working for me is to change up frequently.

It seems I’ll get one or two hook-ups with one colour then nothing until I try something else, then one or two more and so on. I think every fly in my box has been wet this year.

Green, green and white and solid red seem to be favoured by a small margin.

The technique that has been working is to fish the cast about 45 degrees across and down stream. Let the fly dead drift until it straightens out below you and then give it a slow, jerky, retrieve with lots of pauses to let the fly dangle.

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Hits seem to come anywhere in the cast, so be ready.