Bi state shad tourney

[hammer4reel]

Congrats to all that placed . 
only highlights for me was the view . 
fishing was incredibly slow . 
but the view was still better than work 

[Buck154]

Yeah it was tough on the south end. This was my view a lot 

Edited April 26, 2021 by Buck154

[JHbowhunter]

worst shad run I can recall...  we caught fish but as you saw always did better in waders with ONE ROD versus covering tons of water trying to find fish and failing with 6 RODS.   We did scratch out 9 in the boat last night of 14 hookups, but the best we did was yesterday morning with me at 10 for 16 and losing the winning fish (100% no doubt) and my buddy going 12 for 13.  

The highlight of the tournament was a quick deep drop to put my son on a nice kitty cat...

I will add- spoons were virtually useless for us in lower, clear water and many spots not having much current.  Small pink or chartreuse darts were what they wanted. Ironically the one fish that put us in the money was the ONLY fish we caught on a spoon.  It was the most narrowest pinchpoint I ever found, spilling into a fast water, 8 foot pool.  The slot for the fish to swim through was no wider than my boat.  We only caught two there, the 4.785 lb roe that gave us a "4th for the day" and had us 8th overall on Saturday, then held onto 10th overall by end of Sunday then got bumped off the overall board near the end.   The margin of separation between these fish was so incremental and historically low weights overall - speaks volumes about the very pool health of the shad run. 

Edited April 26, 2021 by JHbowhunter

[MGHunter66]

48 minutes ago, JHbowhunter said:

 

worst shad run I can recall

 

Well you can’t keep eating their roe then complain about numbers... can’t have it both ways bro, just sayin’ 

[JHbowhunter]

1 hour ago, MGHunter66 said:

Well you can’t keep eating their roe then complain about numbers... can’t have it both ways bro, just sayin’ 

yeah it's not like shooting a pregnant doe, where you kill possibly "3".   Those roe sacs hold millions.....  I need to stop this disgusting behavior...

 

 

Edited April 26, 2021 by JHbowhunter

[hammer4reel]

Im betting with the consistant warm weather coming the next week this run explodes .

fishing will be good .

 

[JHbowhunter]

9 minutes ago, hammer4reel said:

Im betting with the consistant warm weather coming the next week this run explodes .

fishing will be good .

 

Only in spots, spoke to a lot of different folks and read reports from far south to far north. Nobody was scanning fish (except for you but I think you need to tune your sonar no way you were marking shad).   While there is a decent body of fish South of Easton, that seems to be the only small area where they seemingly are just staging and not being pushed north by a volume of fish.  When the run is historically low in numbers as this one, with nothing to backfill what came through and push them north, this is what you get.   Even when we were catching the 9 we did in boat last night, nothing was being marked because what few fish are there are very aggressively striking so we caught the ones that would have gone under the boat.  I scanned the entire deep hole above there that used to have shad stacked like cordwood, and "maybe" saw just a couple but more likely they were other species. The sonar I have now is superior to the one I used to have on my other boat, and that one marked shad with ease.   I scanned 1.5 miles N of Bushkill, and many spots N of water gap over the 4 days and could never mark a pod of shad. Everyone else was telling me same - was talking to a guy pulling out of Pox last night that said same as well. He never saw such a lack of fish especially for this time of year which should be peak numbers for that area. 

 

 

Edited April 26, 2021 by JHbowhunter

[hammer4reel]

2 minutes ago, JHbowhunter said:

Only in spots, spoke to a lot of different folks and read reports from far south to far north. Nobody was scanning fish (except for you but I think you need to tune your sonar no way you were marking shad).   While there is a decent body of fish South of Easton, that seems to be the only small area where they seemingly are just staging and not being pushed north by a volume of fish.  When the run is historically low in numbers as this one, with nothing to backfill what came through and push them north, this is what you get.   Even when we were catching the 9 we did in boat last night, nothing was being marked because what few fish are there are very aggressively striking so we caught the ones that would have gone under the boat.  I scanned the entire deep hole above there that used to have shad stacked like cordwood, and "maybe" saw just a couple but more likely they were other species. The sonar I have now is superior to the one I used to have on my other boat, and that one marked shad with ease. 

 

 

Jack the last thing you will ever teach me is about electronics ., or reading what the machine shows .

your unit is” fisher price”  compared to high end units .

guys have been having 75 fish days for almost a solid month before this cold snap .

the water temps had the whole river shut down .

fish are laying in the bottom of deep pools and staying in them .

‘once the water warms and gets back to normal temps fish will be caught again ..

as you know shad hate sunlight , yet the best bite other than deep pools has been shallow slow moving water during bright sunlight .

a few degrees makes all the difference in their activity .

water stays above 55 for a few days the movement will be back to normal .

 

 

[JHbowhunter]

8 minutes ago, hammer4reel said:

Jack the last thing you will ever teach me is about electronics ., or reading what the machine shows .

your unit is” fisher price”  compared to high end units .

guys have been having 75 fish days for almost a solid month before this cold snap .

the water temps had the whole river shut down .

fish are laying in the bottom of deep pools and staying in them .

‘once the water warms and gets back to normal temps fish will be caught again ..

as you know shad hate sunlight , yet the best bite other than deep pools has been shallow slow moving water during bright sunlight .

a few degrees makes all the difference in their activity .

water stays above 55 for a few days the movement will be back to normal .

 

 

shad bite just fine in 50 degree water - not true.  Water was up to 54 yesterday. I would take 50 - 52 degree water over upper 50's and 60's any day.... Have had countless days with epic catches in water that cold.   The "guys" you are speaking of are on that one area of concentrated fish. Overall - Lambertville, Easton, Gap area and north been epically bad and in GREAT "as good as it gets" conditions at times...   This is simple physics and laws of dispersion - volume creates dispersion, lack of volume creates opposite. The fish are not there and EVERY shad expert (possibly with more experience than my 40 plus years) all concur with me. 

Edited April 26, 2021 by JHbowhunter

[hammer4reel]

3 minutes ago, JHbowhunter said:

shad bite just fine in 50 degree water - not true.  Water was up to 54 yesterday. I would take 50 - 52 degree water over upper 50's and 60's any day.... Have had countless days with epic catches in water that cold.   The "guys" you are speaking of are on that one area of concentrated fish. Overall - Lambertville, Easton, Gap area and north been epically bad and in GREAT "as good as it gets" conditions at times...   This is simple physics and laws of dispersion - volume creates dispersion, lack of volume creates opposite. The fish are not there and EVERY shad expert (possibly with more experience than my 40 plus years) all concur with me. 

They bite fine when the water stays above 50 , it hasn’t . 
‘river is way down , and the cold effects them more .

fish have been getting shocked every evening .

Low Warm Water would concentrate fish . They are still spread out looking for warmer water .

‘hence why you saw them in the shallows instead of the channel ..

 

your fish finder isn’t even reading 2’ in the water you have been fishing , let alone covering what your boat does ..

 

 

 

 

[hammer4reel]

Here is a fairly well recorded cold year .

look at the dates and info ..

 

‘IMO  your having this same type run right now .

 

https://www.nj.gov/dep/fgw/artnoshad03.htm

 

 

 

[JHbowhunter]

1 hour ago, hammer4reel said:

Here is a fairly well recorded cold year .

look at the dates and info ..

 

‘IMO  your having this same type run right now .

 

https://www.nj.gov/dep/fgw/artnoshad03.htm

 

 

 

we will have to agree to disagree.  I know SHAD.  I am 100% right on this - numbers are waaaay down from what is "normal"  I would not lecture you on fluke, or stripers...     I know one thing - when shad are there, I will figure out how to catch them. I can't catch what isn't there and my buddy Todd and I sure did catch what was there - as you witnessed.   I could not have asked for better conditions, water level, clarity and water temp than yesterday.  We caught every shad that was near our darts - what was there was very eager to strike. 

[Farmshine]

While I hate to interrupt a good debate I’ll add my 2 cents. The water was cold 49-50. Never saw 51 as measured with Hummingbird Helix 9. Speaking of the Helix idk if thats fisher price or spaceX, but we were not marking fish. We chose to anchor in the shoot just above a deep pool (35-40 ft) with a back eddy where they tend to stage. Nobody from Easton to Belvidere was catching fish. I mean some literally went a whole day without catching any. The weights on the leaderboard speak for themselves. Every fish 4.5-5 pounds with a couple exceptions. The fish just weren’t pushing up the river and the ones that were there were smaller then “normal”. We basically put all our eggs in one basket. We only fished one spot, a bottle neck right at the bottom with down riggers . Caught probably 90% roe but the bites were fewer and far between. Every year is different. This year was particularly frustrating because the water level was perfect.


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[hunterbob1]

Amazing how much research and management in biologists involved put the work in with little to show for it.

DE_CoopAmShad_SFMP_2020.pdf

[JHbowhunter]

26 minutes ago, Farmshine said:

While I hate to interrupt a good debate I’ll add my 2 cents. The water was cold 49-50. Never saw 51 as measured with Hummingbird Helix 9. Speaking of the Helix idk if thats fisher price or spaceX, but we were not marking fish. We chose to anchor in the shoot just above a deep pool (35-40 ft) with a back eddy where they tend to stage. Nobody from Easton to Belvidere was catching fish. I mean some literally went a whole day without catching any. The weights on the leaderboard speak for themselves. Every fish 4.5-5 pounds with a couple exceptions. The fish just weren’t pushing up the river and the ones that were there were smaller then “normal”. We basically put all our eggs in one basket. We only fished one spot, a bottle neck right at the bottom with down riggers . Caught probably 90% roe but the bites were fewer and far between. Every year is different. This year was particularly frustrating because the water level was perfect.


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I only have the Helix 5.  Made by Hummingbird - not Fisher Price.   The USGS water temp gauge in Belvedere hit 56 yesterday when I was getting 54 N of the Gap.  The water temp at Belvedere only dipped below 50, to 48 on Friday the 23rd then rose steadily and stayed above 50 by Mid-day saturday.   Dropping temps below 50 definitely hurts the bite but when back on the rise, bite should be insane (when the fish are there - they are not there).  My sonar scans fish just fine on my little "5".  Can't scan what isn't there.