Pacemaker Fishing Forum

I meant to post this sooner, but I took last Wednesday March 29 off from work, looking to combine an evening at the Arlington stop of this year’s Fly Fishing Film Tour with a day of fishing the shad run.  I was able to get Edgar and Kris from PRSC to also take the day off and meet me at Fletcher’s Boathouse. 

Conditions looked to be good.  Air temps were forecast for the low 60’s F.  The rain the night before hadn’t raised the Little Falls gauge too much, we were right around 4 ft.   Water temps were holding at 54F. The morning high tide was 9:49AM in Washington Channel, so the plan was to arrive around 8:30 so we would take advantage of the push upriver and the increased activity at the tide turn.  Despite planning for it, the morning rush got the better of everyone.  We didn’t get out until around 9:45AM. 

Things went well once we got out there.  I caught first fish around 10:20AM, an American shad that hit the shad dart (red & white, chartreuse flash) at the top of my array.  We fished until around 2PM working three or four spots and boated 10 fish all roughly 11-18” in length.  All three of my fish were American shad; Kris and Edgar caught a mix of American and Hickory shad.  The fish hit shad darts and shad flies, orange and pink seemed the most effective colors. 

American
100_0066 by yesitsherman

Hickory
100_0064 by yesitsherman