Shad Fishing

You know, Shad fishing is funny business. Sunday I stood within sight of a guy who was hooking fish every ten minutes for at least an hour. Know how many I hooked? Zero, Nada, Nothing, None.

We both seemed to be doing the same thing as to technique, casting across and down, letting the fly swing until it straightened out and then retrieving with short strips every five seconds or so.


The day before I had done the same thing in the same place with good results but on this day I was having no luck.

The one big difference was that I had been using pink flies the day before. He was using one today but
I had lost my last pink to a log just before leaving the night before.

The funny thing is that as I was gathering my gear to go out again Sunday morning I thought about tying up a few pink and golds but decided that I'd rather be fishing than fly tying.

Well, that is what I ended up doing- a lot of fishing and not much catching. I'm not certain that was the problem but I've seen enough days when certain colours were all the fish would touch that I've been tying up a handful of pink and golds this evening just in case.

Here is what they look like. You can add a bit of lead wire for high water conditions but usually the bead eyes are sufficient. When they work they can't be beat. When they don't...well, you know.