Shad basics

[CW]

It is nearly shad season and I'm looking forward to catching some. Though I don't eat them, many do. I use them for crab and oversize sturgeon. They run about 3-5 lbs. and are easily caught from the shore or from a boat. Dick Nite spoons in gold or chrome with red or chartreuse are classic lures. I've also caught them on crappie jigs and Sabiki rigs are my current favorite. I backbounce just as I would for salmon or steelhead in about 11-14 ft. of water at the head of an island while tied off to a wing dam. June is the best month and several million return up the Columbia annually. Over 500,000 went over Bonneville Dam in one day a couple years ago. For sturgeon a filet or a whole fish is great bait for the big ones, especially up near the dam. Because they are not salmon and oftentimes 10 or more are caught in a day, it is an excellent, low stress fishery for kids and those who like more action than just one or two salmon. Use light gear and have fun. The comments below are from the WDFW website. .http://wdfw.wa.gov/outreach/fishing/shad/shad.htm

C.W.

Shad Fishing in Washington
How and where to catch shad in the state of Washington, and what to do with them after you've caught them.

What's so great about Shad?

You might call shad the lottery fish of Washington. When you're talking shad, you're talking big numbers. But there's one major difference--shad are a lot easier to come by than those million-dollar lottery payoffs. Hit the Columbia River below Bonneville Dam from late May through June and you're likely to hook into a million-count shad jackpot.

You might also think of shad as the piscatorial Rodney Dangerfield--they don't get nearly the respect they deserve. The word is slowly getting out, though, that shad fishing is great sport. These stout battlers don't give up easily, and often put on a flashy aerial battle. Couple their strong fight with a tender mouth, and landing half of the shad you hook can be an accomplishment.

Add to this the fact that there is an abundance of this largest member of the herring family. The estimated size of the shad run, based on fish passage counts at Bonneville and The Dalles dams, first topped 1 million fish in 1978, and has stayed above that figure ever since. The peak was 1990, when over 3 million shad passed through.

A Little Shad Biology

Usually called just "shad" on the west coast, the correct common name for this introduced species is American shad. The scientific name is Alosa sapidissima, from the Saxon word allis (an old name for European shad) and the Latin word sapidissima (most delicious).

American shad are the only anadromous shad on the west coast. On their native Atlantic coast, they share the southern part of their range with hickory shad. Another close Atlantic relative is the alewife. Two other, mostly freshwater, shad species native to the eastern U.S. are gizzard and threadfin shad. Threadfin shad have been widely introduced in western lakes and reservoirs (but not in Washington) as a forage species. Native west coast members of this family (Clupeidae) include Pacific herring and Pacific sardines.

On the east coast, American shad reportedly grow to 30 inches and more than 10 pounds. Maximum size in the Columbia River is about 24 inches and 8 pounds. (As of the date of this publication, no state sport-caught record has been established or even applied for in Washington.) Average size here is 17 to 19 inches and three to four pounds. Females run an inch or two longer than males, and are correspondingly heavier.

The back is metallic-blue to greenish, shading through white to silvery on the belly. A row or rows of dark spots decreases in size toward the tail. These spots are not always visible, but show up when the fish are scaled. A very distinctive characteristic is the saw-like serrated edge along the midline of the belly.

Like salmon and steelhead, shad are anadromous. They enter freshwater rivers in the spring to spawn. Unlike Pacific salmon, they do not necessarily die after spawning. Many shad continue to spawn annually.

Spawning takes place at water temperatures between 50 and 60 F, primarily at night, with the eggs being extruded in small numbers near the surface. The average female bears more than 50,000 eggs, sometimes as many as several hundred thousand.

After fertilization, the eggs slowly sink as they drift downstream, finally becoming lodged in crevices or on aquatic vegetation. After the fry hatch in five to 10 days, they gradually work their way downstream, usually spending their first summer of life in the river. Males usually mature at three years of age, females at four.

Shad History

Shad have a colorful history. Long before being imported to the Pacific side of the country, they were getting a name for themselves. As far back as the Revolutionary War they helped the cause of the future United States. After suffering through a tough winter, General Washington's undernourished troops at Valley Forge welcomed the bounty of a large shad run on the Delaware River. The volunteers filled out their diet with smoked shad.

[Will-C]

Hello,
On the Delaware river right in the middle of Trenton New Jersey we have herring, shad, and and striped bass running almost at the the same time. We use 3 gold herring hooks on dropper loops with a piece of yellow wire insulation shoved down on the shank of each hook rigged on 8 to 10 pound test with a three ounce bank sinker on the bottom. We fish vertically bottom bouncing when you feel the first herring on you leave it down there and wait for the other two hooks to load up. Occasionally a larger shad will whack the rig and it gets quite entertaining. We cut up and fish the herring for cat fish and stripers while jigging for herring. If you catch a really cute herring we live line them for the bigger stripers. Most shad fishing here is done by dead sticking with flutter spoons bent to flutter wildly and but not to much so they spin. Shad darts are also big with pink or chartreuse.
Some folks eat the shad roe fried in bacon grease (not me) Also cooking shad fillets or whole gutted on a cedar plank is popular when done cooking throw away the fish and eat the plank, it tastes better plus it has a lot more fiber. Shad and herring are excellent bait for bluefish, drum, sea trout, sharks and most anything that swims in the salt water. We call shad poor mans salmon. Some folks will even drop a herring under each tomato plant for cheap fertilizer. This practice is not endorsed by the tree huggers or peta. jeez a previous wanta be and still a lurker.
D.D.

[CW]

Dave,

it sounds like you East coast folks have refined the art of shad fishing more than we have out on the left side. What size are your "gold herring hooks"? Can you post a pick?

When salmon is open here in the late spring, it is often a toss up as to which to pursue.... the unlikely salmon or the ever entertaining and easy to catch shad. I figured out I can still fish for salmon using a Kwikfish with sardine wrap on a 4-5 ft. leader and then replace the typical the 3--4 ft. dropper line going down to the 3-6 oz. lead ball with a the Japanese Sabiki multi-hook rig (the #6s are stronger don't break off as easy as the #8s) which has about 4-6 shad flies made of little white wings made of fish skin with red heads, with fine gold hooks. That way I'm fishing two species. Well, three considering sturgeon still go for the kwikfish too. I'll try to get a pic of a Sabiki rig in. C.W.

[Will-C]

C.W.
I'm at work. I'll get the style and the hook size when I get home tonight. Email me your address and I'll send a couple out with a flutter spoon or two. We make up the flutter spoons to kill time in the winter. Picture challeged presently
D.D.

[Capn Jack]

WOW! I'm impressed. I've only caught (in Puget Sound)a couple of what I was told were shad and they were only about 10" long. Kind of looked like a super-sized herring.
Jack

[dotnmarty]

Every Spring is there is a Shad Festival in two Delaware River towns right across the river from each other, New Hope, PA and Lambertville, NJ. These towns are just a few miles up the river from Washington's Crossing.

[dotnmarty]

[Will-C]

Hello,
We don't have salmon around here, so shad are popular around here when the dogwoods bloom. Lambertville has the Shad Festival in mid to late April. The female shad on eight pound test is a strong fish with a weak mouth. They start to get active at 50 degree water temperature and they say 55 degrees is optimum. A seven pounder is a good sized fish for these parts and as far as I'm concerned great for salt water fish bait. Up in Bethlehem they have a Moravian Festival which also features Shad way up river near Narrowsburg New York they get shad on into June. They usually spawn when the water temp reaches 65 degrees. In the early fall everything in the river feasts on the young fry moving down the rivers towards the ocean. Since Trenton is the end of the tidal water the herring run seems to concentrated there. The tide has a seven foot difference between high and low and lots of rocks. They have a 35 herring daily limit now but before two guys could fill a fifty quart cooler in less than two hours with 250 to 300 herring. They get a buck a piece for live herring down on the Jersey coast an hour away so you see a lot of big live well action as the herring are striper candy for the surf casters and boat fisherman. Since the striper fishery has improved we know see up to fifty pound stripers in the spring coming out of the river in Trenton and near by so the shad have taken a back seat to harvesting herring and looking for mongo stripers. Some of the large stripers come on blood worms but those herring are a lot cheaper.
D.D.

[Will-C]

C.W.
Those herring hooks we use are mustard style 92627 size 6 they come a hundred to a box. We strip 3/8 inch pieces of yellow insulation off 14 gauge stranded wire and slide it down over the hooks shank. A dropper rig made out of 8 pound test swivel at the top three dropper loops about 8 to 10 inches apart with a sinker snap or a loop for a three to four ounce bank sinker. It works for herring around here and will lift an occasional shad. Good Luck!
D.D.

[CW]

Dave deem, your rig sounds great. I'd love to see a pic of it and I'm sure it would work here.

I fished today in 12 ft. of water in the Columbia across from the marina at Kalama at the upstream end of Sandy Island, anchored just below the wing dam on the Oregon side. Fishing with just the dog and only one rod out of the boat, I had a great day on the water. I must've hooked 35-40 shad, boated about 18 for my cooler and put another 6-8 in my buddy's boat next to me. The rest I lost because I was eating lunch, adjusting the radio or missed the strike. I used the 4 hook Danielson rig pictured above as a dropper clipped to a 3 oz. weight and ran a 4 ft. leader back to a small chrome and chartreuse Dick Nite spoon. To avoid tangling the multiple hooks in the net I skipped the net, and just lifted the fish into the boat.

The boat next to me hooked a nice bright 20 lb. salmon on the same style of Dick Nite and the boys had a good fight on the light gear and poles for many minutes before the fish finally broke free about the third time up at the boat.

It is fun and I look forward to taking friends and family back out in the coming weeks.

C.W.

[Will-C]

C.W.
I just sent you some shad stuff U.P.S. three day. This stuff will never hold a salmon unless you have a good drag set light with a lot of line. You need not send me anything. I was a bad kid growing up through random acts kindness I'm trying to shred my former heartless and harsh personality flaws and get to C-Dory heaven which I heard is in Les from E.Q Marine's back yard. I think I have Tourette's syndrome. (Random cussing) Actually I'm sure of it.
Jeez, still a lurkin
D.D.

[CW]

Dave: very generous, I look forward to getting it and fishing for more shad this weekend. CW

[CW]

I'm going again tomorrow and just stocked up on a few more Triple teasers and Sabiki rigs. Now the WDFW wants me to catch them a couple 5 gallon buckets for a Biologist intern they've got. Chores, Chores....
Now that the word is out, I'm expecting company out there.

Starcraft Tom, I'm hoping we can go this week one afternoon M-Th. If you can bring Peter/Jazzmanic, do so.

This from my buddy Joe S. on eating shad:

"Have you ever tried eating the shad? The roe is amazingly good. Gourmets from Martha Stewart to fictional Nero Wolfe love it. I bring it to my Mother and she cooks them. Amazing stuff, you would never know it came from a fish. Very easy to cook. The fish themselves are pretty good too. I do a very slow bake on them wrapped in foil, 300 degree oven for 4 or 5 hours. Mild, rich, soft meat. The slow cook disolves the bones. This is traditional American food. George Washington would have starved to death at Valley Forge if the shad had not run that year. Some confederate general (you know the guys that fly the other American flag) lost a battle because he was late because he went to a shad bake.
Anyhow I enjoy the roe nowadays and usually cook a shad or two myself."

C.W.

[CW]

D.D. - Dave,


Wow, thanks for the many (30?) shad lures. It is really something when two "strangers" connect across a continent about a topic of mutual interest and one sends the other a particular kind of gift few others even know about. The power of the internet and this C-Brats site in particular is amazing! THANK YOU!

Those hand painted mini shad spoons look fantastic. I notice most of the blades are hammered copper. Is that something you made or did you just solder the hook on before you painted it? (I like the eye dot for effect). I bet these too would draw the occasional salmon. The little chartreuse and green lead headed jig is also popular out here. The yellow insulator dropper line looks great and even I can probably duplicate that.... I like how they are simply tied with loops slipped in the eyes.... easily replaced if a shad breaks off a hook, and the overall length looks right too.

How deep of water do you fish for them? For us it is about 7 - 18 ft. with 12-16 being the best. Do you fish the lures suspended or back bounce with your weight right on the bottom? I'll take and post pics of Dave's nice lures here soon.

Well, Harvey and I boated about 20 on Saturday and lost another 10 - 14 more. Fun times. I donated them to the biology class for dissection and they loved it. Sunday evening I tried for an hour or two and got skunked.
C.W.

[Will-C]

C.W.
Your welcome. We buy the blades solder the hooks on then paint. Tie the dropper loops and then slip the loop through the eye and around the spoon as you would a sinker. We bounce sinkers for herring right off the rocks on the bottom. We feel around while bouncing the sinkers on the bottom looking for deeper holes mostly in anywhere from eight to twenty feet of water. The hammered copper spoons we soldered the hooks on, shine the backs up on your jeans a little tooth paste might help. The shad around here start out in the spring down pretty close to the bottom. As the water temp rises they seem to move higher in the water column. I used to run four rods each with different weight and as one set up started to prove effect I would just dial in the others. A drop of shrimp oil used to work like a bandit sometimes drizzled right on the spoons.The hammered copper backs seemed to be the most effective at least back here. Most fisherman are funny about sharing info sometimes even among friends we all need to work on that to help each other. We fished one day in the river and we were murdering fish (shad), I noticed a boat over to our right a couple guys had caught nothing. I finally casted a line right over their boat and and reeled it up to them and said cut off the rig tie it on and start catching some fish. The guy said wow I can't believe you did that, where can I buy this stuff he asked? I told them and they left. About two hours later they returned anchored up below us when they caught the first fish we all stood up and cheered it was really great. Most fisherman are fairly rugged individualists and don't play well with others. Some fisherman associate catching fish to sexual prowess. Not me, I think we need to stick together.
D.D.