The physics of it all dictate lighter and smaller, the biology suggests buggier, and all the painstaking research says we’ve only scratched the surface of their depravity, as their tastes might range from drab to the ridiculously bright.
Physics because there’s a lot less water and rather than flinging high atomic weight, I may drag bottom with bead chain. Smaller because the absence of all that water suggests the prey may well be discriminating – shy of big flies in that shallow water …
Biology because the off season led to a wealth of papers on the American Shad, their eating habits, and my surprise to find out that the reigning angling wisdom on what and how they eat – has no basis in reality.
… and while they might seine all manner of smallish creatures in the salt and brackish estuaries (mostly small shrimp from stomach samples), the oddity of their attraction to bright colors may well be that of an expatriate dining on foreign cuisine – snacking on visual cues or the opportunistic feed when an item resembles something familiar.
Which is all that a burgeoning fly inventor need know … armed with a pocketful of bright will still work, but a cornucopia of experimental caddis and mayflies, minnows, moths, tee shirts, tennis balls, and discarded Doritos, might actually yield a Secret Fly of Complete Shad Dominance (SFoCSD), something that’s rumored to have surfaced many times in as many zip codes.
I’ve got a pocketful of unknown and untested and am proof against both parking lot catcalls and all-knowing snigger. I’ve got buggy and somber, drab and motile, bright and bug-shaped, and every other combination a fertile mind can summon …
… and now I’ve got them in trout sizes, out of respect for low water …
You lads can flee to elevation and keep all those fragile trout company while I defend the local waters from the Silvery Invasive Menace surging upriver from the deep. All those bony palates, buck teeth, and feelers, paired with loose morals and lower standards, exactly what’s needed to keep a fly dresser thinking he’s distilled pure genius to a hook shank.
Does anyone else pine for the days when Singlebarbed posted less fly tying and fishing information and more batshit crazy stuff? I mean, more shad stories?Really?
We both know you’ll never get traffic with shad. Repeat after me; that’s trout, salmon and steelhead. Say it. Out loud.
I hope your traffic figures are up. I find this fishing stuff tiresome.
More than 40 years ago I briefly tied flies commercially in the SF Bay area. The no-hackle duns and split-wing dries were beautiful but I was slow. The only things I ever made money on were shad flies. I love them because they kept me in beer, even if it’s been since Country Joe was semi-famous since I’ve been within 1000 miles of the fish.
Shad are a gift from the Fish God, whose sole reason for existence is to make up for snooty, selective, fish – that you strain relationships and empty your wallet pursuing.
They are the last of the Plentiful, and while they won’t remain that way long, it’s the last best sunday morning worship services wprth attending.
Country Joe and the Fish, who could forget?
What the Internet needs is more quality control. I suggest an Office of The High Inquisition to “flame” those bloggers who write boring articles on fly fishing and fly tying and who decorate this nonsense with grab & grin fish porn. What is desperately needed is more Wonderdog stories, batshit comedy, fartjokes and frontal nudity. Underground (the Pro.) got this exactly right.
This is a fly fishing blog site?
With all the mention of gentically modified tomatoes and farm chemicals oozing into local streams I thought I was reading Mother Jones.
You mean Singlebarbed is NOT Michael Moore?
The “encroaching Bony Silver Menace” made me think this was going to be an article about PETA and Betty White at first…
Makes me wish we had shad in Hoosierland. I guess white bass will have to do.
….Those look like a success to me(but I know zip about what Shad reallly want…) They’re starting in the Columbia now; I wish it wasn’t a half day drive from here. Go KB! Slay the invasive Pests from the Past! Free the Delta of the Silver Horde!
No,no,the fish,dude,not the Kali goverment…(The Residents were right you know…)
I’d ask that you post up the recipe for those darts, but that would be giving Bert exactly what he wants.
Back on track: how is all of your work-related travel going to mesh with a four-day work week?
@Joe, I’ve only got four counties left to visit, so I’m hoping the travel will be much more managable given the four day work week, the lack of a budget, the budget deficit that we endure once we get a budget, and the drought induced fire storm that will annihilate everything from Arizona to Hawaii …
… or so they say.