Fishing Log

Most fish less than 3 pounds???? HMMMMMMM... Here is an article on the reintroduction of Hickory Shad into the Delaware River back in 2005. Please read: https://www.fishandboat.com/About-Us/Angler-and-Boater/AnglerBoater2005/MayJune/Documents/spec1hicks.pdf

Thanks Dave, I used to fish that area south of Portland when 611 was open, I guess I could go into Jersey and take Rt 46 and fish that side. Thanks, definitely an option.

Fished the Gap by the visitors center boat launch from shore, nothing. All the boaters went up to the Rt.80 bridge to fish, don’t know how they did. All other shore fishermen that I could see did nothing either, I talked to a few. I tried every color combinations I had with darts and spoons. I usually fish the Pa side but with 611 closed I can’t get to the spots I like, the fish tend to run that side better. Oh well, maybe I’ll try up by Smithfield beach, I don’t have a boat so I have to fish from shore. I drive over an hour to get to the Gap area so it’s disappointing when you don’t even get a bump. I know people don’t like to give up spots but is there any other areas to shore fish from near there ? They don’t have to be an exact location.

Good old time shad fishing this afternoon N of Bushkill S of Dingman’s. No spoons. No divers. No downriggers. Just 1/64 and 1/32 ounce hot pink and white darts with light weight ahead of them in 7’ of water. After wasting the morning at Worthington to scratch out 8 I pulled the boat and went North. Quit at an even 60 for the day (52 that spot) at 7pm left them biting. Good action but these are by far the smallest roe I have ever seen. Most don’t even make 3# and that was once unheard of. Most fish we got were roe. Landed two in net at once on a double dart rig. Hooked and landed a 6.6 lb channel cat - man I thought I had the winning shad at first!

Fished Narrowsburg for 1.5 hrs this evening..........No hits.......no fisherman either?

Fished easton to belvadere from shore with darts spoons crappie jigs not a bump and saw 0 caught either by other shore fishermen or boats .water is way to low and warm was wet wading today already !

30 netted today. Sounds great - but not really. Took 13 hours although late afternoon accounted for 17 of them. Nothing over 3.7 lbs. Historically small shad this season. Smallest I have seen in over 40 years.

Had a good evening, fished from 2pm to 630pm. Nothing til 430. Boated 15.water temp 56, water low and clear, no debris or snot. Be out there tomorrow evening.

Gotta report the bad with the good honestly as I always do. Fished wading N of gap tonight and only landed two bucks the last one being a micro- buck of about 14”. Very slow. Days in row of falling temps will do that. Boat tomorrow for tournament and will head further south.

Dave D, yes, that parking lot is still free and in good condition.

Joseph C, can you still park in the lot at the canal head where the fish ladder is? I haven’t been there in several years but I thought that was part of the Delaware Canal State Park?

What a difference a day makes. Only caught one in 3 hours of fishing.. water temp 60.5, wind excessive

Only 4 today. 3 were very big roe 1 buck. All very healthy looking clean fish.

One fish every 4.5 minutes?

I've posted this before. I'm only passing on my experiences - 80s and 90s had good shad runs, A typical run below Easton started late March with the end of early run fish being caught. This varied slightly according to water temperature. I recall shivering my butt off fishing below Lambertville catching shad with 10 inch thick chunks of ice stacked behind me on the bank. Mid April was the main run, lots of shad were caught from Trenton to the Gap. Late April catches would vary, good days and poor days for a week or so. Then in May Loads of large roe came up mixed with hearing. My guess is a lot of these fish spawned in the lower river and were returned spawners. Approximately 2006 to 2009 had poor runs. If I recall correctly, 2010 was the come back year. But; The large roes in Mays never returned. From what I read online, it appears to me that only people above Easton are saying that they have had good runs in the past 3 to 5 years. Possibly the loss of the May return spawners is also the reason the smallmouth declined.

Rob Wright - that’s amazing. Congrats. Not surprised by the action - just surprised by the method. Drifting spoons?

Fished Zane Grey today from shore 3:30 - 7 pm caught 6 shad water temp. was 61.8 deg.

Caught one from shore before the rain. We need the River to come up about 2ft for these fish to spread out more for us shore guys. Hopefully the rain stained it up a bit.

Fished north of Dingman's Saturday. Early but slow bite. Saw a few fish caught, shore fishermen caught a few. Boat fisherman caught a few. Nothing to write home about. Will be at it again during the week.

forgot to put my name see my post below @ 10:50 PM

Dave D, the three-fish limit goes back further than 2017 although I am not certain what year it was. It was the DRSFA that lobbied for the six-fish limit sometime in the 80s. No one on the DRSFA Board of Directors had an issue with lowering a “no limit” daily creel status to six fish. One of the factors that helped the six-fish limit become enacted was the change of Shad from just a fish to a recognized gamefish. Once it became a gamefish, a daily creel limit could be established. Back then Shad were a lot bigger on average, so six fish represented at least 15 pounds a day, which is plenty for anyone. Further lowering the daily limit to three was not that big of a deal because 1) three fish is still around 10 pounds a day, 2) most guys release their Shad because they refuse to eat them, and 3) people were beginning to realize the population was having difficulty because of increased commercial pressure, increased predation from a growing stripper population (as you have noted) and other predators. Not having state fishery departments conducting population surveys as they did in the past doesn’t help us gauge a given year’s population, which leads to guessing games and conjecture. This year, for instance, the fish are again small overall but there must be an awful lot of them in the river given some of the reports I read here. Also, we seem to have warmer weather earlier in the year and less snowfall in the Delaware watershed, which means the river warms earlier and the fish enter it sooner. A lot of them are upriver before we know it, and because the river temp. Is low 40s when they begin to move in, they’re not aggressive and people don’t catch them. But look what’s happening now. All of a sudden we have river temps in the mid 50s and the fish are going bonkers. And it’s only April 15. You’re never going to know what’s in the river unless PA, NJ, and NY re-implement data compilation through population survey studies. And if there are going to be decreases in daily creel limits such as there was this year from 3 to 2, at least get press releases out so the public knows what’s going on. There is a beautiful boat launch in Riegelsville, NJ with a large glass-encased bulletin board. But there is nothing on that board to indicate the current creel limit. C’mon, New Jersey, post fliers up and down the river so anglers know what’s going on. By the way, I thought this board was for communication of information and ideas, not for slinging mud at each other, without even giving names. Pretty childish and unnecessary.

One fact that is not being discussed here is striped bass preditation In 1991 they were declared a gamefish which prevented the commercial fishers from harvesting them. I can tell you from experience that that 10 years later the bass population exploded in the tidal river. What a lot of folks don’t know is there is a resident population of bass in the Delaware that never migrate back to the ocean. I used to fish the cove in the Trenton power plant for The End of October to The middle of April and landed many bass in the 40+ pound class. These fish have decimated the herring populations as well as the shad. In addition it is my opinion that this caused many of the commercial fisheries to overfish the shad in the early 90’s as we saw a sharp downturn in their population just a few years later. Now 32 years later the striper population is declining due to lack of forage fish! This is the mismanagement I am referring to. This is what happens when politics get in the way! The striped Regis should have been loosened to allow for additional harvest both on the surf and in the river to manage population overgrowth. This was thought when I took my hunter safety course back in 1982 - overpopulation of any species will lead to dessamation of the available food source, then the entire population is a risk! Problem is that this is not taught or discussed anymore.

Rich; Anybody remember what year the 6 fish limit was instituted, what year the 3 fish limit likewise?

Possibly genetics may be playing a role. Scale studies to assess fish age would be helpful. Maybe weighing in 9 pounders at Andys sport shop instead of releasing them to reproduce more large fish contributed....