Shad and the American River Sunday

I'm back from Los Angeles. Couldn't get my Brother out to a lake and going up to Big Bear, where his boat is, was pretty much not an option. You'd have to have your boat in the water by 6:00 am on a holiday weekend or you'd have to wait a long time and park miles away. So we passed on that. One thing we did do is go to the Orange County Swap Meet. I ran into a guy named Joe Ortega who owns a company called Jerkit Lures. The lures are a soft bait with a jig head like the picture below. The difference is the design, as it is with all soft baits. Supposed to be good for Bass, Trout, and most everything else. Well see. If they work, I'll publish name and address if anyone wants to explore them. Don't want to sent you in a bad direction.

Took a trip to Sacramento yesterday for the Granddaughter’s birthday lunch. Since I was there, I hooked up with some new friends to do some shad fishing while Shoreman’s wife went to the book store.

Rich and I’ve email back and forth for a week or so and he was able to meet me at the river. He brought along his Son, Mark. The access this time was Rossmoor off Coloma Road, off Sunrise. Very convenient because I was lunching at Applebee’s on Sunrise just above Coloma Rd.

I met Rich at the parking lot and we went to the spot where he’s been catching shad on almost a nightly basis. What I discovered was, that shad don’t bite on what they used to. That being shad darts. Since all I brought was shad darts, I didn’t catch any, but Rich and Mark did. While I was there, Mark caught one and lost one on a little 1/16 oz pink jig head with a trailing pink soft bait. I put one on my line, but with 6 lb test, I couldn’t get it out very far. Rich caught his on a small silver Kastmaster.





This is that little pink jig







Needless to say, since all I brought was my 6 lb test and shad darts, Which used to work, Shoreman was unprepared. This morning I got an email from Rich, after I left he caught 5 and missed a bunch. Mark caught 20 and missed as many or more. So my diagnosis is that one, 4 lb test on my rod is needed, two always take your tackle box, and three, hang around until the bite really starts. This I plan to do when Rich and I meet on Friday afternoon for some more shad fishing.

In the mean time I’m planning a trip up Highway 88 tomorrow, amid the thunder, lightning, and hail to do some fishing at Caples Lake and possibly Red Lake. Want to see how Caples is doing since they stocked a bunch before Memorial Day and are stocking again this week.

That's it for today. I need to go over to OBS and see what going on there. Till next time, remember: "A bad day fishing is better than any day at work".

Shoreman