Shad 2005

“Big Water”

We always pray for a solid snow pack and an average rain year to fuel our reservoirs but we received more than we wanted.  The reservoirs were at capacity by the end of April and the rain in mid-May lead to some heavy runoff.  On May 18^th a rain storm hit the valley and turned our river into a raging torrent. The Yuba River hit a high of 52,000 cfs; the American was dumping 25,000 cfs to keep up with the runoff.  I was thinking this could be the undoing of shad fishing this year. 

By Memorial weekend the flows were down on the Yuba to 5,800 cfs, still 4 times normal.  The visibility was about 4 feet not like the normal 10 feet but good enough to fish.  I spent the next week floating the Yuba in search of good concentrations of shad.  We found shad scattered along the whole river and did our best below where I normally fish.  George and Willie managed to land double digit numbers each day but sometimes it was a long time between fish. 

So much for the Yuba it was off to the American.  The flows were still high (8,000 cfs) but there were lots of shad in the river.  The team of Mike Alaimo and Bob Johnson were into the shad soon after the drift boat was in the water, and it continued until they cried uncle the first day.  I was surprised at the resilience that these two had, you have to realize that they are 74 and 84 years old.  They had fished hard the first day and I thought that they would be tired the second day, boy was I surprised, they were raring to go.  “Good Morning, Let’s catch some shad”, was the first thing out of their mouths the next morning. 

Sometimes taking the back of the boat is not a bad thing.  John W. immediately got into the back of the boat and it worked out to his advantage.  At one location we fished, John had the perfect angle and drift for where the shad were holding.  It was a grab or hook-up on every cast for hours.   George hates casting over the middle of the boat but with his partners continually hook-up shad; he finally gave in and got into the shad too.  If you made a good cast with a mend in the middle, it was almost automatic.

Two new anglers this year were Craig and August from Fremont.  I was lucky again today, had the first run all to ourselves.  They were immediately into shad.  It was August’s first shad on a fly rod; he was very excited and would scream on every hook-up.  I can still remember August saying, “I’ve got one, I can feel it”.

A pleasant surprise was Al Bien from Sunnyvale.  He just happened to find me on the internet and booked a trip.  Glad the date worked out. 

It was a pleasure to have three grandfathers and their grandsons with me this year.  For each of them it was their first fly fishing shad trip and none of them were disappointed.  Craig, Talbert, David and Michael, you are all fine young men and are going to be excellent fly fishermen.  I was especially proud of David Ring, 11 years old, after catching his first shad on a fly rod, a few minutes later he landed this 4 ½ lbs striper.  Way to go David!

Just to show you that shad flies will catch anything that swims, here is 6 lbs steelhead caught on the American River on June 18th.
 

Looking forward to guiding you all again next year.