Fishing Log

Rob Wright - all we need is some better conditions and water temps to go back on the rise and we can sure get back to providing evidence up and down the river of what kind of run it really is. I subscribe to "volume and dispersal" when evaluating size of run. The more shad that come up the Delaware to spawn, the wider the range of quality fishing will be. For sure the "early runners" mission is to get North but a good analogy is stuffing a sausage casing. The more push from the rear, the deeper and thicker the sausage fills in. When it's a banner run, shad will be thick from Yardley to Port Jervis and all points catching extremely well at the same time. I think the spawn is driven by both calendar and water temp as well. The last shad to leave the bay and enter fresh water most likely spawn further south.

Since I can't get on the river because of high water and cold weather, I thought I'd tie some darts. I'm going to try again next week if conditions are OK. This weather sucks.

Flyfishing for shad/smallmouth, I use a 9' 5wt with a sink tip line (Rio InTouch 24' sink tip 150GR (4.6IPS). The 150GR line is blue and the sink tip portion is black. I use the color change as a reference when trying to get the fly/spoon at the proper depth. Flyfishing equipment can get expensive, and you pay for what you get. As Duff & Denis C mentioned about repairs, some manufacturers offer a lifetime warranty. If anyone is considering purchasing a flyrod, please go to a store that allows you to cast/try various models.

I stopped at a tidal river in PA on my way home this PM. I didn't arrive at the site until well after 3:00. I managed to land 6 fish and lost a few others due to what I discovered to be a bent open hook. (Dumb dumb dumb) I caught my first Hickories of the year - 4 of them in the first hour. YAY! Then they went away and half an hour later I caught 2 nice Americans in less than 10 minutes. Then nothing for the last hour. The weather turned from a light west wind to a blustery east wind with rain about the time I caught the Americans. Also the tide was about bottoming out and I lost 4 darts in that last hour. Interesting fishing, and a pleasant surprise.

Duff I see the "perch jigs" you're using for shad,lol,, Cool! Are you making them hit the bottom? I only have a click and pawl reel. Will that do or not a good idea? What size hooks are you using?

I fished the Barryville area today from 3:30 to 5:30. I landed 3 Buck and 1 Roe. You had to get in their face but they cooperated when You did.

Phil - That be them. WG posted years ago that those fish are the reason we still have shad in the river. I think he is correct. You prob heard stories about the river being so polluted that there was no oxygen in the water. In the early 60s, I was 11. I had been fishing on my own since I was 8. I rode my bike 1 1/2 hrs to the river to Linden Ave in Philly. I recall riding along the waterline seeing dead shad every 5 feet in both directions as far as I could see. This was very upsetting to me. My thoughts were I'm a big boy now, I can fish for the big ones in the river. But what the hell is this ! I remember thinking I would have been overjoyed just catching one of these georgios silver fish. Since the early shad pass the city in Feb, the water was cold enough to hold enough oxygen for them. They still made it up river.

For what flyfishing setup works best, I feel it's just getting the spoon/fly at the right depth. Since it's not feasible to keep changing lines or river position, a simple lift/lower if the 9' rod tip & line out should get you into the sweet spot. I was flyfishing (wading) with 7 of my experienced flyfishing friends, we were fishing same flies of various colors I caught 8 the everyone else nothing. The only difference was the sinking line I was using. They all switched to various sink lines and still nothing.

Duff - wow that was awesomely informative. Thank you. I can definitely see that fitting in with my experience and can concur. Different topic to the real experienced fly guys for shad... I have several friends, possibly even myself someday interested in getting the perfect shad setup. Most are going with 6W or 7W, but the questions I see them asking are more about "what is the perfect line/leader combination?" Sinking line? Sinking tip? Poly leader over sink tip? I keep saying 'this is the year' for me to do it, so maybe I will just order online what I need and and give it a shot myself as well.

I am surprised this blog is not utilized more. I do recall when "the shad hotline" was all we had... These in-depth shad discussions are great and this is the right place for it, right on the DRSFA site itself! The facebook blogs have done a decent job of replacing WOOFISH blog as well, but this site should always be the core source of information. I have met some great folks over the years through the many shad fishing connections, we all seem to share the same passion. Alex, Minda, Dave, Rusty, Phil M, Keith Wolf (riverwolf), Shadpappy (George), Eric who runs the bi-state, Shadster (Mike) also helping with the bi-state, and so many more of you I have met at the shorelines casting or boat ramps, as well as those I have yet to meet in person like WG...

Good information from everyone. Nice to read different perspectives. As for hard facts to back up the scale question, I have old annual reports compiled by USFWS that reflect what I said in last night's post. Mike Misiura came in after I left but I believe George Mugaro was in immediately after I left for a couple of years. I got out because I was burned out and was raising two little boys. We did a hell of a lot during the 20 years I was in, thanks to a large group of highly involved volunteer members who refused to kow-tow to PA's negligence of the shad's plight in the Delaware. At 24 years of age when we got the club rolling, I was the youngster of the group and had a great collection of older gentlemen and women who got involved and fought for and promoted the fishery. Ray Goodson, Cleave Yeahl, Angelo Christopher, George Mugaro, Donna Deibert, Max and Marge Hesselgesser, Don Teats, Lester Siegfried, Dick Muschlitz, Mike Topping and so many more. I wrote a book in 1993, at the publisher's request, called Return of a Native: Shad in the Lehigh River that chronicles the shad's history in the Lehigh and also details the DRSFA's efforts to restore it. The club gets credit for those two fish ladders on the Lehigh, and PA Congressman Bob Freeman, who introduced the legislation that eventually procured $3.1 million for those ladders. We also convinced the PA Fish Commission, who had a great Commissioner named Ralph Abele at the time, to institute a daily creel limit of six fish when prior to that you could catch and keep as many as you wanted. We considered that a waste of a precious resource and went back-and-forth with the PFC until they finally lowered the limit. Jersey adopted it, too, as did New York. It was later lowered to three fish a day. We held a very popular shad festival in Bethehem, at which we served 1,000 dinners of planked shad. The first year we did the festival I believe we sold either 250 or 400 dinners, which included watercress salad, a baked potato and a hearty portion of shad. Then the event became so popular because of the publicity we were able to generate by inviting outdoor writers into the Lehigh Valley for a weekend of fishing and the festival. We had stories in Field & Stream, Outdoor Life, the New York Times, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Harrisburg Patriot-News, and so many more large and small newspapers and publications. That publicity not only boosted attendance at the festival, but boosted membership in the club until we had more than 1,800 members from many states but primarily PA, NJ, and NY. I'm one of these packrats who hates to throw away anything that has importance so for years I had all my shad clippings, reports, letters from US Senators and Reps when we were fighting Tocks Island Dam . . . a lot of it went to Mike Topping and some I still have in my garage. As those reading this can see, there is a lot of history behind the present DRSFA. That little book I mentioned above would be a nice addition to this website if someone knew how to scan it and get it on the site. Might also be nice to scan some of the old reports from USFW so members and others who visit here can have an idea of what the runs were like back in the '70's and '80's. If anyone wants to take on that job, just contact me through this site and I'll get the documents to you. Unbelievable, there is one copy of my book at Amazon for $19. I don't know how it got there. I have a few personal copies left and would be willing to loan one for scanning. As you can see, I like to reminisce. I also just got done writing a textbook for a high school/early college curriculum I've been working on for the past four years. It's a curriculum that chronicles human habitation of eastern Pennsylvania since the time the Paleo-Indians arrived. In the unit on the Industrial Age, I highlighted the commercial shad fishery in the Delaware as an example of humans overusing a natural resources, and the consequences to the fish. I could get that section of the unit to someone if there's interest in putting in on the site. I was able to find quite a few historic photographs through the Library of Congress to illustrate the text. Hey, again, let me know. I don't get to meetings but I'm still willing to help the club "get the word out" and hopefully expand its membership.

For Dennis J Scholl .... I fished constantly during many seasons with Mike Misiura who was the President of the DRSFA (not sure if it was before or after your time ??) for the better part of two decades & I mean 30-40+ trips per year wading and in the latter years in a boat after he was unable to drive, much less wade. I based the 6 year cycle on the information he obtained when he held the post. Perhaps he was incorrect. Show me concrete scientific data on the subject, otherwise it is just word of mouth. ShadHarris, I believe was speaking of people who are experts in catching, not necessarily, experts in the life cycles of the fish (correct me, if I am wrong Jack). Also, Mike led me to believe that repeat spawners returned to the river each year they survived down running. I agree that larger fish have been scarce for some time. Albeit, I did catch two 9.5 pounders in two subsequent years in the same time frame to which ShadHarris referred he caught his 9.5 pounder. Mine were caught in the same spot at Worthington. Admittedly, I weighed them on a Boga Grip which wasn't certified, but I believe the weight indicated was pretty close to accurate. As ShadHarris implied, when they get that big, they have a different body shape. The area on their backs behind their heads are so flat you could set a beer can on them and it wouldn't tip over, if the fish would hold still. ;-)

Couple of points on two of the posts below. 1) for Capt. Alex . . . shad fry do not stay in the ocean for six years. Some precocious (young) adults return after two years, most fall within three and four years and occasionally adults come back after five years. This is based on years of scale studies done by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which has a shad monitoring program based at Rosemont, NJ (north of Lambertville) for many years. I became acquainted with the biologists there (Jim Friedersdorf and then Joe Miller) in the mid '70's and through most of the '80s. New Jersey Div. of Fish and Shellfisheries, under biologist Art Lupine, conducted the same sort of studies in addition to tagging studies coordinated with the Lewis Fishery in Lambertville. Repeat spawners may be six years old when they return to the river a second time, but unless it's a freak of nature, I have never heard or read about a first-time spawner being six years old. I used to take scale samples, as many DRSFA members did back in the '70's, to help USFWS and the NJDFS. I learned how to read the scales and was aware of what scales from a repeat spawner look like. 2) for ShadHarris, I have only known four shad experts in my life. Three of them were the gentlemen mentioned above and the other was Fred Lewis, with whom I had many conversations about shad and their habits, their decline in the 1930s' to 1950's, his theory on their return in the 1960's, and other shad topics. These were the men to whom shad provided a livelihood. It was their business to monitor the runs for data and analyze the data for trends. Monitoring also included juvenile monitoring in the summer. It helped with projecting the size of future classes. For instance, when there were large juveniles classes, the runs 3 and 4 years down the road reflected that. It happened time and again. New Jersey used to apply sonar devices on one of the bridges in Lower Bucks County, which allowed them to get very accurate data on a given year's population size. Unfortunately, none of these programs exist anymore, so we're forced to rely on reports from commercial fishermen, which is certainly helpful to gauge what's coming into the river, and anglers like you and me, which is helpful but certainly not scientific. There are just too many uncontrollable factors that influence anglers' catches, so while a great catch one day might make people think there's a terrific run going on, we really don't know. The reverse can be said, too. I was heavily involved with this fishery for 20 years after I founded the DRSFA in 1975. I learned there are cycles in the population size and I learned that shad are very resilient. I got out of the club in 1995 after being president for 20 years and am very glad the club is still in existence. I'm happy the Shad in Schools program is still going on but am very unhappy that neither Pennsylvania nor New Jersey expend much effort monitoring and protecting this fine fish. The fish ladders at Easton and Glendon, which are there solely because of eight years of hard work by the DRSFA, do not work as well as they could. Yes, fish pass through, but there would be more if the ladders were actually cleaned prior to each season and perhaps once during the season when debris and sediment start to collect in the chambers and at the tops of the ladders because of all the flotsam that comes down the river from storms, etc. One more thing and then I'll stop: 6- to 7-pound shad were not uncommon in the '70's and '80's. My dad caught a 9.3-pound roe with unbelievable roe sacs. Why the fish are smaller now is a question to be posed to the biologists. Perhaps they're coming in at a younger age (scale samples will answer that). Perhaps the ocean isn't providing enough plankton, which is what shad eat. I don't know. I think it's nice to have these conversations. I think it would be nicer if we had concrete answers based on science and not daily fishing reports.

I agree with pretty much everything ShadHarris has stated. He knows his stuff. I'll jump in with one more thought that I don't believe has been mentioned, thus far. The decade of outstanding fishing prior to this year & last started exactly 6 years AFTER ocean netting was outlawed. Commercial fishing had advanced to a point where targeting & harvesting fish had become very efficient. Makes perfect sense since the fry stay at sea for 6 years prior to hitting the river. Now, what could explain a sudden steep decline in the fishery after a decade of superb fishing? I know for a fact that commercial fishermen are really hurting due to the dwindling numbers of their target species. Could it be that some who are desperate to pay mortgages & feed their kids have been scooping up some schools? I have zero proof of this! But it would explain the somewhat steep decline of this year & last years run. BTW, the numbers of fishing coming into the lower river remain pitiful. And, unless they are able to miracle their finny butts from the bay to points north of the Gap that does not bode well for the rest of the season.

Dennis Scholl - removing returning shad from the equation as they are nearly a non-statistic at this point, in terms of "first year returners" which I believe is 4 years from leaving the river as fry to the salt....... These are the shad we have been catching for the most part for the past 10 years. I can go back to 2008 and 2009 and maybe a few years after that where either I caught or my boat caught shad over 6 lbs...... Looking at my logs and reports from my vast network from Lambertville to Port Jervis (including even the Lewis netting numbers) - 2017 peaked, and 2018 started a down cycle. I still recall a 2015 trip to Easton with boat (do not do that much ) where I fought a shad I could not land for over 1/2 hour and finally got it near net and the dart pulled - that fish looked over 9lbs but would have been such an anomaly given nobody was weighing many over 6# - but I still stand by that assessment. (1984 I weighed 2 shad at 9.5 lbs on certified scales so I know what they look like). Have not seen any over 6# since nor heard of any. Just see a decline starting in 2018, continuing in 2019, and at this point looking to be continuing 2020. Again - hope I am wrong but I do soak enough darts and spoons in April and May as well as have a vast network of folks that I would consider in the top 50 all time Shad experts in the Delaware as resources.

I'm one of those old timers too. Been in the outdoors for a long time. There is one think I can tell you is it's Mother Nature. It isn't the same day to day or year to year. That you can take that to the bank! Let's wait for the floods to subside and get fishing. Then we will be able to know what kind of year this is!

Between the rock-snot last year, the hovering just below 48 degrees for an extended period lately, and now the semi-flood conditions, mother nature has sure thrown us some curve balls. Very hard to pick up a pattern when these jerky things happen. Where I like to fish, the water is up 6 feet over normal and still skyrocketing. The old-timers (wait a minute, that's me) used to say the great runs come in 3-year spans, with a tapering up before and a tapering down afterwards. Not sure about that. My best days have always had one thing in common: a clear sky. Clouds and/or rain seem to put the wise guys on edge. When the water comes down to 3 feet above normal, I think the run may finally show its hand.

+ 31,000 cfs flow at Trenton. Whoowhee! ...and it's still rising. I don't expect much shad fishing to be happening until the weekend, maybe. The good news was that most of that rain was well over 55F.

Didn't want to spoil the party. But now that the topic has been brought up - I too feel we are on the down side of the cycle. The last two years were no so great. If I am correct, the last down cycle was 2006->2009. 2010 was the great come back year. Hope I'm still around for the next one.

just an fyi....all people in boats under 16 feet need to be wearing life jackets till may 1st..cold water rule for PA

Fished hard from shore yesterday casting non stop for 2.5 hours. Alternating between green darts and several spoon colors. Water was 46 and rising - not a single bump. Saw 5 boats working hard below me - not a fish from what I saw. 2 other guys from shore by my not a bump except one guy landed a small rare hickory as I was leaving. It is what it is. The run will be what it is. Alex follows the fish from the time they leave the bay in February way south well into late May. We are in a down cycle - yes it is still early but the numbers in lower river are not what they should be.

I have to agree with Rob also.i have been at this for 45 years and the best fishing is always in May.i fish and catch shad until July 4th in the river above narrowsburg to the junction pool.it seems lately everyone is done after the contest before the fishing really heats up .

Capt alex I have to RESPECTFULLY disagree with your 2020 assessment of the run It's only the first week of April. There are many weeks of good fishing to come. Last year I would catch 50-60 shad a day in may. We also caught that many in the first week of June north of the gap. I pray that I am right but will only know when Fathers day is here. Good luck and I love your perseverance.

Capt. Alex, thanks for what I took as a "suck it up" reminder. Ideal conditions and fish lining up to take our offerings are the exceptions and waiting for them at home won't ever catch a fish. I'm going to head for the river this morning with a buddy to see if we can persuade any fish to come play with us. If I catch a beauty like your 5lb'er I will happily try to figure out how to post the picture. Cheers to you and to all on this fine Easter morning.