Just a quick post here for posterity, as it was a short trip, and I did not get many pictures. I planned on making my first trip out to do some shad fishing the week of Christmas, but my girls had plans to go see a play last Sunday after church, which meant I had a free afternoon. I pinged Todd to see if he could swing it after church as well, and found out he was game. We met up at CS Lee around 12:30 and hit the water by 1:00.
Since we would only have half a day, the original plan was just to stick around the bridge to see what we could find, as reports near the Econ have been onesy-twosies for the day. Also, we already have a trip planned for next week, where we might focus a little more near the Econ. As we started fishing the first set of creek mouths, we ran in to Suede Langston, winner of the 2017/2018 First Shad of the Season Contest and got a report of a successful day on the water before he paddled in. We fished the creek mouths and I managed to catch two nice shad, but “quick released” them before getting a picture. Oh well, the cost of using barbless hooks.
After fishing for about an hour and picking up a couple small panfish, it became evident that there were not alot of fish congregating or making their way through, so we decided to motor up to the mouth of the Econ. There we ran in to Brandon McGraw who reported catching a lot of bass and crappie, but had not run in to any shad that day. Always good to run in to members of the Shad on the Fly Facebook Group!
We spent another hour or so swinging flies through a trickle of a current. I managed to hook up with one more shad and lost it after a jump or two. Again it did not seem like there were many fish congregating or moving through yet. We motored back down to the creek mouths and fished for about another hour with no takes before calling it a day around 4:15.
Not a ton of action, but there were fish there. Let’s hope that the rain this week gets them moving!