mpwarrak
Senior Member
Finally made it out this morning after over a month... took my loyal partner along.
As you know I don't really care what kind of fish I catch as long as they bite and fight.
But one thing that's been eating at me is not being able to catch those "swarming" fish that come up and swirl up the top of the water with shad flying everywhere. They don't seem interested in anything slow, such as live bait on a hook.
So I keep reading Robert and others talk about ripping a rooster tail or fluke through on light line. Well, I've tried the rooster tail with 8-10 lb line with no success. I've also tried some flukes, but I never could hook them to where they swim right.
So I broke down last night and decided I was going to figure this out. Bought a new reel dedicated for this job. Mounted it on a light, short rod and did something you may laugh at. I don't know if people do this, but I loaded the whole reel with 8 lb. pure FLOUROCARBON line. Man, that stuff is almost invisible. Then I walked through the lure aisles and thought "what would most resemble these shad they are chasing?" I ended up with some Berkley Powerbait Swim Shad PRE-Rigged in pearl white.
Now I had everything except a nice morning with topwater action. Boy did I get it. Got there 45 mins after daylight, later than I wanted. Missed the first bit of action. But for a good hour and a half, there was plenty to be seen.
Ended up with six fish in the boat with plenty more that got away. I don't even feel like I had a good rhythm, between watching my toddler and feeding him breakfast and untangling stuff, I don't even feel like I fished non-stop.
All I know is every time I threw that swim shad into a mess of surfacing fish, something would eat it, often as soon as it hit the water.
And one question. I'm used to seeing several (3-10?) fish coming up to chase shad. But 4 times today, I saw something I've NEVER seen in my life. A MONSTEROUS school of fish would chase up a big school of shad. I'm talking probably hundreds. And instead of the fish kinda swirling around chasing the shad like normal, this school of hundreds of fish would chase the shad across the top of the water at breakneck speed, probably 10-15 mph. This would only last for 3-15 seconds and it would be gone for a long while. Then it would happen again clear across the cove. To give you an idea of the size and intensity, an area of water about 200 feet square would suddenly erupt to where you thought the fountains of the deep had broken up. Scared me half to death the first time. And then it would end just as fast, leaving the water as choppy as if a helicopter had just taken off. I was never quite close enough to cast into it, but I got there just after one of them and caught the small striper in the picture....
Sorry this was long, but get out there and fish while this is going on, it's a blast!
As you know I don't really care what kind of fish I catch as long as they bite and fight.
But one thing that's been eating at me is not being able to catch those "swarming" fish that come up and swirl up the top of the water with shad flying everywhere. They don't seem interested in anything slow, such as live bait on a hook.
So I keep reading Robert and others talk about ripping a rooster tail or fluke through on light line. Well, I've tried the rooster tail with 8-10 lb line with no success. I've also tried some flukes, but I never could hook them to where they swim right.
So I broke down last night and decided I was going to figure this out. Bought a new reel dedicated for this job. Mounted it on a light, short rod and did something you may laugh at. I don't know if people do this, but I loaded the whole reel with 8 lb. pure FLOUROCARBON line. Man, that stuff is almost invisible. Then I walked through the lure aisles and thought "what would most resemble these shad they are chasing?" I ended up with some Berkley Powerbait Swim Shad PRE-Rigged in pearl white.
Now I had everything except a nice morning with topwater action. Boy did I get it. Got there 45 mins after daylight, later than I wanted. Missed the first bit of action. But for a good hour and a half, there was plenty to be seen.
Ended up with six fish in the boat with plenty more that got away. I don't even feel like I had a good rhythm, between watching my toddler and feeding him breakfast and untangling stuff, I don't even feel like I fished non-stop.
All I know is every time I threw that swim shad into a mess of surfacing fish, something would eat it, often as soon as it hit the water.
And one question. I'm used to seeing several (3-10?) fish coming up to chase shad. But 4 times today, I saw something I've NEVER seen in my life. A MONSTEROUS school of fish would chase up a big school of shad. I'm talking probably hundreds. And instead of the fish kinda swirling around chasing the shad like normal, this school of hundreds of fish would chase the shad across the top of the water at breakneck speed, probably 10-15 mph. This would only last for 3-15 seconds and it would be gone for a long while. Then it would happen again clear across the cove. To give you an idea of the size and intensity, an area of water about 200 feet square would suddenly erupt to where you thought the fountains of the deep had broken up. Scared me half to death the first time. And then it would end just as fast, leaving the water as choppy as if a helicopter had just taken off. I was never quite close enough to cast into it, but I got there just after one of them and caught the small striper in the picture....
Sorry this was long, but get out there and fish while this is going on, it's a blast!
