Pacemaker Fishing Forum

For the past five years I've been helping Friends of Fletcher's Cove raise some money to support their great work via silent auction 'guided' trips.   This year and last I had the opportunity to introduce teenagers to the shad addiction....here's today's report:

Crankbait-Spoon Batter Up
Silent Auction Trip 4/16/23

At the plate to chase shad for his first time trying to catch his brother Gavin, Justin Chung started strong with a lead off double!  Quite the way to begin the day!  The future marine biologist was somewhat ironically reluctant to embrace any of many baby tarpon he landed on the usually mighty but unusually placid Potomac. Anchored near "Gulf Branch" far upstream of normal April haunts, we had lots of company all day from Fletcher's rowboats, shore anglers, and fellow fishermen in kayaks, canoes, other private watercraft and even stand up paddle boards.  But we paid much greater attention to our shiny, scaly, silvery companions.   After some brief pilot testing with a crankbait and spoon combo, a set up normally reserved for dead-sticking from the stern, I handed over a 7 foot long spinning rod to Justin for cross river casts and cranks and damn did that wobble created by the crankbait drive the hickory shad crazy today! 



At times Justin seemed to be fishing a seam with a traffic jam of zestful shad lighting up a jubilant young man with an oft-bent rod.  Our conversation waxed from the doubles, to double-headers, to thoughts of triple-header doubles....We failed to achieve the latter, but we didn't fail to enjoy the outstanding and abundant life on the river, from the alosines to the cormorants to the great blue herons to arguing Canadian geese to an osprey clasping a snatched herring, to huge painted turtles, to we-have-no-idea-what-most-were jumping monsters that were smashing the bountiful baitfish that were simultaneously satiating our appetites.  Justin may have come up a baker's dozen short of his brother Gavin's total from last year, but more importantly he may seems to have been infected with shad madness, and that's priceless!





Conditions:

Water Temp:  68-70 F
Weather:  Hot and sunny with a mild upriver breeze, clouds rolled in after noon
Turbidity: 1.5-2.0 super clear, some were hooked site fishing
Totals:  62 for the primary client, and probably another 80 for the guide and Dad
Tide:  Outgoing from 6 AM to departure with very clear windows of movement
Flow:  Or is it "No Flow!"  Nearly unprecedented dry and hot conditions persist, gage height 3.4, 5,140 cfs (near record low)

Last edited by Mhen (Apr-17-23 8:24AM)