Shad from shore

[bignose]

I ran into John Veil up along the Susky today (an official John Veil sighting). We were both shore fishing with spinning rods and dart tandems.
The fishing was pretty slow. He reported a few, and in 2 hours I caught three.

Caught one on my first cast and thought that I finally hit it right. No such luck.
The water temperature was pretty low, it was uncomfortable standing ankle deep. Cold toes.

I think that the river needs about 10 degrees higher to make the fishing better. The water was fairly clear with about 18" of visibility, today.
It didn't help that the river level dropped 6 inches in the two hours I was there. The shad seldom bite on a falling river.

[J.A. Veil]

Bignose is an experienced and skilled shad fisherman (he tutored me several years ago). If he caught only three shad, they probably weren't there or weren't biting. I fished at four spots on the lower Susquehanna a bit before Bignose arrived. I would cast for a while without success then tell myself "Let's give it 10 more casts". On several occasions, I was part way through that end game when I caught a fish. My catch rate was about 1 shad/15 minutes -- enough to get a few, but not enough to hold my attention for a long haul. I did manage to catch my first shad for 2015 and had an enjoyable morning. Plus I got to share fishing reports and lure info with Bignose.

[Shady]

Fished a popular spot on the susky this morning and probably caught 25-30 (including some small ones that some of the guys said were herring?) in about 3 hours. Also had a couple pesky striped fish steal some of my rigs...

[HJS]

In all my years of fishing the Susky for shad (none recent) I don't remember any spring being so unproductive as this year. Between the never-ending cold water and high/muddy flows the Susky is indeed having a difficult spring. This upcoming week is supposed to be in the 80Fs and flows are about normal now. Guess we will see what's left of the of the hickory run. In the past, the first week of May was always the peak week for the American shad in the Susky. But productive American action is pretty much restricted to the base of the dam in the "combat zone". Fletchers is having a good year for American shad, so maybe the Susky will too... there is still a little time left, we shall see.

[whenican]

I've had a few great days with the shad in the past month but also some very slow days too.
This is the 1 st year, however, that I've had mud shad, too, bite my lure....instead of accidently snagging them.
Every once in awhile a fish with whiskers or stripes tries to beat the shad to the lure. More current the better fishing.