Monday, February 23, 2009

Shad Fishing the St. Johns




For years I have wanted to fly fish the shad run on the St. Johns river. Every winter shad migrate back to their spawning grounds and fly fishermen line the banks to greet them.




The past few years the shad run has been very slow and we never had a chance to give it a try. Last year I met a new falconer, John Reed, that lives on the St. Johns and he emailed last week to say "The Shad are running".




Walt and I spent all week tying up tiny flies and jigs and headed out for our first shad fishing adventure on Sunday. The water in the St. Johns was very low and "Puzzle Lake" earned it's name, I ran the boat a ground a few times.




We first stopped a few hundred yards down stream. Walt got distracted by large bass swirling near shore and he played with those while I tried my hand at shad fishing.




It's much more like fishing for trout in a stream. You cast upstream and bring the fly down at a natural speed, twitching slightly as it floats. It didn't take long for me to land my first shad. We ended up landing 12 shad by noon.




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