Pacemaker Fishing Forum

I decided to brave the wind and hit Occoquan for some shad today.  The water was pretty brown and the tide was going out when I got on the water about 10:15am.  Air temps were nice, going from the 40's to about 70 degrees, with 10-20 mph West winds.  It started out very slow for me.  Nobody was catching anything for a while.  Finally, a guy from shore caught a couple.  I got a couple bumps, but did not hook a fish.  Then, a couple old timers started catching a few on what looked like single shad dart setups.  I finally hooked my first fish after lunch on a pink jig head with a small while curly tail above a shad dart.  It fought really well and measured 18 inches.

I hooked a 16 incher on the same jig within 20 minutes.

I hooked another shad that jumped two feet in the air twice before getting off.  It slowed down at low tide around 1:30pm.  I caught another 16 incher a little after 2pm.

There were a few boats and kayaks that came and left while I was there.  A couple more showed up before I left.  One guy came in kind of fast and anchored in the middle right before the foot bridge and anchored.  He was pretty rough looking with no teeth.  He started catching a few with a single rig and seemed to be keeping them.  I saw him catch at least 4 or 5 before I left and all stayed in his boat.  I ended up calling it in to VDGIF, but the guy was too far away and it was about an hour after I left that I called.  Lots of cormorants eating and I saw an Osprey catch one too.  It should be on by next week.  Fish seemed hesitant to bite, but I was sucking anyway.  I had fun and was off the water by 3:00pm.