Fishing Log

Chris - I am pretty much anti-spoon, but that puts me in the minority. I uses 1/32 and 1/16 ounce exclusively in two colors. Hot pink and white, and chartreuse and bright green. I run them behind in line sinkers, 1/4 to 3/8 ounce generally. I can see the fish on my finder, and they bit non-stop last night and most other trips this season so far.

can anybody tell me why I am not catching any fish? I am fishing in the channel with downriggers and am running my spoons 1 to2 feet off the bottom but am catching nothing. My depth finder is showing most of the fish coming through 7 to 10 feet down so I tried fishing those depths and still catching nothing. yesterday my brother outfished me 6 to 1 on flatlines. Any suggestions?

Thanks rusty ill give them a shot

Question for wader fishers: If you're in a known good spot and are catching shad on a regular basis, and suddenly the action drops dead for 45 minutes or so, do you get in your car and go to another known good spot or wait for another school to possibly come through your area?

Fished Reigelsville yesterday and today...slow pick of fish but they are there.....real fighters in fast water...Anyone know where the hovercraft airboat like vessel came from....they were very considerate of fishermen....

Thanks Phil, I'll give it a try. You guys are the best

Komar: First link is for fishing above Neversink River entry to Delaware. Normal low flow is 2.5 ft. at this station. Second link is at Milford Bridge in Montague where normal low flow at this station is 5.5 ft.. Third link will give temperature which increases very slightly as you move downstream. https://nwis.waterdata.usgs.gov/pa/nwis/uv?cb_00065=on&cb_00060=on&format=gif_stats&period=&begin_date=&end_date=&site_no=01434000 https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/uv?cb_00060=on&cb_00065=on&format=gif_stats&site_no=01438500&period=7&begin_date=&end_date= https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nj/nwis/uv/?site_no=01432805

Snizzy...The rods I use for downriggers are ugly stik model big water downrigger rods model # usbwdro62oc832...8'3 light...6-20 lb line...nice rods...I got 8 of them there great for faster water...Rusty...if u need I can send u a pic..

Went 8 for 10 in a couple hours today river is still high what action rods are you guys using out there on diwnriggers seems like my light action rods are a little to weak for this high water

launched yesterday 9:30 am at Lambertville Bridge spots Were full. anchored up below bridge next to a buddy He was bailing shad ,I got no hits& every other boat was catching moved up to a spot by Bridge started catching some roe ,mostly Buck l boated 10 another DRFA club member boated 46 & the buddy below me boated at least 60. overcast & spotty rain left at 2pm water temp 56-57

Fished 5pm to 7:30 tonight. Was hot-shotting it from the shoreline (no waders) with 4lb. line. below Tom's Creek on the PA side. Landed 10 of 17, Not a good ratio, but I was off-balance on the slippery shoreline at times and lost fish when they jumped because of it. One big roe got off at my feet and must have been in the 6lb. range. I thought the old hen was going to burn up my freakin' drag. Still getting mostly cock-fish though. Good outing.

a big thank you to the man operating the weigh station you turned a bad day into a good day . thanks for all your help

Final day of the Bi-state. We returned to a super-secret spot N of Bushkill, where we got them real good Friday before the big river surge, and scratched out 30 to the net out of 35 hookups and several more LDRs. Too many cookie-cutter 4-4.5 roes to get us into the upper echelon of the tournament money, but we feel blessed to have held onto 5th overall. We made a wise decision to sleep in late, but then started trolling around 12:45 pm to explore what was going on in these horrid conditions, and got 2 out of 3... I thought it was best to then anchor in a spot that normally produces but get in tight to the PA shore and it paid off. Once the sun went behind he mountain the steady stream died off and we motored upriver to another spot to get back in the sun on the NJ side (water very stained, needed the shad to see the darts) for the last hour and banged several more. River dropped a lot today, and historically I would not fish in these conditions let it wait one more day, but I can say I caught fish in higher and more stained water in this location than I ever had in 40 years. Thanks again to the tournament director for running a great tournament. I am not sure how many were running an hour south to weight in fish... Probably just us maniacs..

Fished for four hours at Riegelsville this morning/afternoon and boated five shad, three roes, two bucks. Did not see any other shad caught among 10-12 boats. Very odd day. River was rising, logs all over, got hit by one and had to untangle it from anchor rope. Had to clear lines every few minutes. Must have been a lot of rain up north. Just happy to be out on the river. Work has kept me from fishing for the past 10 years. Got out three times last year after fishing maybe 10 times in the previous eight years. Imagine that, me, the guy who started the Lehigh Valley Chapter of the DRSFA back in 1975, when I was 24. Now I'm 65. Holy s__t!

Tried to launch at Smithfield to fish with my kids who are both in the tournament and the NPS closed river road. Later found out it's closed for a bike n brew. So not only do shad fisherman get screwed but it is also the youth turkey hunt. Guess the NPS and Deb Zyrus feel drinking beer is better than getting kids in the outdoors.

Looks like we will just have to sit tight for a while with the high water. Next good opportunity seems to be Monday-late, if it can come down to 2 1/2 to 3 feet over normal by then and clear up some. Tuesday will not be conducive to good shad fishing if the weather report is correct. Komar: Sometimes the fish will manage to get the line wrapped around its body during the fight and stay out there for long periods of time like that, as you probably know. Time to put the butt against your gut.

Tough start, had a hard time setting anchor where I wanted to be and saw a lot of nice fish coming in on boats near by. None the less, shook my troubles and anchored up where I could....I'll be getting a real anchor this week...left with 11 boated and about 8 shook the hook. Solid fights bending hooks before their time. Big Roe shad mostly on my lines, made the first shift worth it!

Traveled to Smithfield beach yesterday only to find that the ramp is only open on weekends. We ended up at Bushkill and had a good day. We picked up about 20 that included some really nice Roes. One took me 20 minutes to bring in. Great day on the big "D"

Newbie to shad fishing, and want to try on the fly rod. Any recommendations on where to try, Port Jervis or upstream from there? Thanks

Tough day for us. We were right in the middle of boats that were hooking up. Usually, we can do as good as others, but not today. Go figure!?

Jim Shad are well past PJ - catching in Narrowsburg, Zane Grey, etc. There is a heavy concentration of shad for well over 100 miles , go get them while you can!

Thanks for the ramp update Dick, we did 20 in 2 hours last night, did not sit for 5 minutes.

Another awesome evening of fishing on the deleware. Stopped counting at around forty with non stop action and even a quad hookup in the mix. Everyone seemed to be catching last night including the 20 or so shore anglers who where stacked up like shad in front of the Lehigh fish ladder. See u guys again tonight!!!!