The 2015 Potomac Shad Run So Far

It started off slow, improved a bit, was good for about 72 hours and is now crap.

Lets examine some photos.

First 'river herring' of the year. First fish caught last Friday at Chain Bridge.

 Not long after we got into hickory shad. Water temps were in the low 60's. I like them to be above 63.

 Bent 5wt is what I want to see. Aggressive stripping causes the hickories to go frantic and attack flies

 One of the smaller hickory shad from last week

 Just a few hours later the hickories increased in size. The biggest of the day was about 15"

 Nothing beats a bit of hickory shad spooge on your wellies

 Check out this hickory, it has damage to its operculum. We got one last year that had this on both sides

 I wanted to switch up the color of 1/32 oz shad jigs from chartreuse to pink

 On the boat on the Occoquan. Plenty of fish around just not biting. We spooked a striper that was over two feet long. The bird watching was exceptional

 Back up to Fletcher's on Sunday. I've never had anyone redeem a donated trip from a raffle until this day. We got into fish. Often and steady but not insane. Mostly on the Snowhite Damsel.

 This one was massive. 1.3lbs

 The wind was relentless. I was cold and glad I wore waders. The trip up with my dinky outboard was 45 minutes

 A bunch of Apache helicopters flew over. They looked like they were ready for battle

 Bent rods above Walker's Point.

 One nasty gizzard shad

Art from Orvis Tysons Corner joined me at the Tidal Basin yesterday. Harry got one MASSIVE LARGE MOUTH BASS. You have heard me talk about him on the podcast. He is such a sweet guy. He gives these to others to eat and he can fish like you wish  you could fish

 

 I put on a massive herring fly. All I caught was a herring. This tiny fish was hooked in the mouth on a 3/0 hook ???

 'Artemis" with a yellow perch. He got this on a Senyo Ice Man Minnow

 Here is that huge herring fly

 Jamal got this one (fourth of the day) on a spinner bait

 Here is all the botanical flotsam that floats down during flood stage

 POTUS breaking off from the other Sikorski and Blackhawk

Since the river is blown out and better be fishable by tomorrow, lets look at some film:

Just a sample of the shorts I've filmed this week. Water is dropping so get your flies tied up now and get out this weekend. Dress warm. Water temps are dropping just as the air temps, just not as slow.

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Spring Floods Good For Shad Reproduction, Bad For Fishing and Guiding

We've had quite a bit of rain in the Old Dominion these past few days. I'm normally a fan of big thunderstorms just not during the shad run. The Potomac is rising and will crest at over seven feet just above where we fish for shad. This is good for the shad. It allows them to do their thing unmolested by anglers. The murky water makes it harder for the birds to pick them off-though the osprey and bald eagle are feeding their nestlings with the fish so its bad for them. 

The Potomac has a massive drainage system. If it rains in any of four states it will end up in the river. What ever is on the ground ends up down here too. This time of year there is a lot of plant based flotsam from all of the flowers. There will be all sorts of junk floating down and swirling in the eddys where we target these anadramous fish. Every cast will get snarlerd in small twigs and dropped floral parts. Its a nightmare.

 

Here is a graph of the rising water. We are looking at about 3-4 more days of the river draining. One benefit of spring time is all the plants need to soak up water to fill their leaves and flowers with water. That is turgor pressure if you want to be specific. What ever the plants aren't soaking up is runoff. That includes all the rain that falls on building surfaces and paved surfaces. So there is A LOT of runoff. Thus the river is rising. It has to go somewhere. All of the windblown pollen is also in the river making slow spots covered with a thick glaze of yellow.

All of this runoff will be loaded with soil from farms and construction sites and other miscellaneous eroded locations. My clients from California recently told me that all of these construction sites with giant dirt piles would be illegal back home as California has rules about soil runoff. Too bad we don't have rules like that  here. Thus the river looks like  chocolate milk. If you want to know how much sediment is in the water please refer to the below graph:

 As you can see the amount of sediment in the river has had a detrimental effect on the water's clarity. Just

imagine how clear this river used to be before all of us messed it up.

This is the Shad Cam. This water was clear about two days ago. Now its nasty. 

Combine high water, muddy water, flotsam, and increased water speed you get an unfishable river. When its unfishable we have to head to other waters and or just wait it out. This time of year all of my works is based around the shad and thus I'm out of work this week. Hoping the water goes down after this weekend (Project Healilng Waters 2-Fly Tournament) we should be back on the shores tossing sink tips to the fish. 

In the meantime you should be cranking out flies to fill your boxes.

  

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DIY Canoe Rack | Change Back On A Ten

So I have this beater canoe. I want to have it on hand to guide for snakehads this summer in some hard to reach spots. The canoe has had a lot of fun over the past decade.

The issue with storage is we live in a two bedroom apartment/condo and there isn't room to store it. I used to keep it at my parents house which is a 20 minute drive with no traffic. I need to keep it close for work.

For several months the canoe has been at a friend's backyard down in Lorton. The problem is he just moved to Charleston, SC this week. So last week I picked up the canoe.

As you may know, my old car died in November. It had a roof rack. My current ride does not. We tied down the canoe with the straps running through the car. Its rather awkward but it works and it provides a rod rack when taking rods to work. The downfall is there is no room for me to wear my cowboy hat while driving.

The other problem with the new set up is that it covers my sunroof. That isn't too bad, I can deal with the extra shade. The bad issues is that the canoe in its current state prevents me from opening the back of my car to get to my gear.


Rather than going out and buying a Yakima or Thule
rack I decided to improvise. I went out today and  bought two pool noodles at the Dollar Tree. I then went to Home Depot and purchased a long piece of Poly Vinyl Chloride (PVC) piping. You should look up how this stuff was invented, totally by accident, rather fascinating.





I had the guy at Home Depot cut the pipe to the length of two pool noodles and my daughter and I shoved the pipe up in that noodle. We threw these into the back of the car and drove the .5 miles home.

The pixie stood by as I loosened the straps and shoved the reinforced noodles under the boat. I then tightened the straps and baboom I have a roof rack. The canoe is elevated just high enough to allow air to flow through the sun roof and allow for me to open the back of the car.

 Final product. Its cheap and filthy and it should work.

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