Pacemaker Fishing Forum

I went on Sunday after church to the Potomac River around Chain Bridge to try out this shad fishing thing. More firsts for me! First time there and first time targeting shad. I accessed it on the DC side, not the VA side. Those are some steep cliffs! I didn't take any pictures but I really enjoyed it there. The scenery is beautiful, you get some good exercise with the walking/hiking/rock scrambling, and there were tons of birds. No bald eagle this time. I didn't have any shad darts so i just had a jig with a 1.5" curly tail with a dropper fly above it then a swivel and pegged weight above that. Lost that setup on the second cast I kept it simple and rerigged without the dropper.

I was getting hits every few casts, but they kept coming off. It wasn't until I landed one that I realized what was going on. I was snagged gizzard shads. By the end of the day I landed three gizzards (another first, first time "catching" one), all foul hooked. But they still put up quite a fight! The last one fought much harder than the others so I thought it might have been an American, from what I've heard. I saw others around me catch a few Hickory/American shad, and thankfully throwing them back. Maybe I wasn't letting my lure fall deep enough...I was too worried about another snag. I also saw fish feeding on the surface, not sure what kind though. Any idea?

Even though I didn't catch what I was after, I had a blast. From what I hear there are also smallies, cats, stripers, and snakehead in the vicinity. I definitely plan to go back and fish there more often I was hoping to go next weekend, but it might be raining all next week...we'll see!