Pacemaker Fishing Forum

I decided to not go on Friday morning due to the wind and the cold. I was able to get out Saturday afternoon instead. The weather was beautiful, albeit a bit windy at times. I fished a double shad dart rig, white and chartreuse. I got absolutely zero hits. I didn't even feel the shad in there. Normally when they are running strong I can feel the lure bump into all the shad swimming around. They must have been really deep, or maybe the cooler weather pushed them back? I fished for a few hours and didn't see anyone else catching any. I did see a handful of 20-30# cats being pulled up though. I also saw a bunch of osprey flying around. At one point there were 5 circling around. I saw one pause and hover in midair. I thought he was going to dive but he didn't. Bunch of cormorants as well. They didn't have any problem catching fish

I did get to talk to a dad visiting from North Carolina who was with his ~10yo son. He said he hasn't caught shad before. He is a fly fisherman but left his fly fishing stuff at home and all he had was some spinning gear. He didn't have any darts but he had jig heads with curly tails and some marabous. I have caught shad with that setup before so I told him it depends on how the fish are feeling but those would work. We talked for about 5 minutes while I gave him the cliff notes of how to fish the area for shad. He knew about Fletchers, which I told him is a great spot for shore fishing, but that it was closed right now. I told him he could hike there if he really wanted, but it would be a long trek, especially with a kid. I wished him and his son luck. That was at the beginning of my outing and given how things went I don't think he was able to catch any.

Because I don't get to go fishing much these days I was pretty disappointed at my results. On the long walk back to the car I came to my sense and was thankful for the opportunity to be out in nature.