Pacemaker Fishing Forum

When Bob and I were emailing back and forth about where to fish today, he commented that he would just as rather catch a shad than anything. I agreed since it's almost over so to the "O" we went.

In talking to some local shadders, they were lamenting that it was over. One fella had only caught 4 shad the day before. But they didn't have Bob with them!

We were on the water by 7:30a and there was only 1 other boat there. It was 46-47dF when we started, a little chilly but the temps moderated quickly and our jackets came off fairly soon.

My goal today was to get at least 23 shad which is what Bob and I caught on March 17, our 1st trip for shad. And...that was the day I beat him. Fond memories!!

I was headed up top when we came up on this sign! !



We stayed below it for a few minutes and caught a couple but we needed to get up top.




Seeing no one around, we meandered up above the bridge and started to catch a few.













We were doing pretty well here but Bob had me down 24-11.

My heart got racing a bit when I hooked into a nice snakehead. He bit the spoon...on a light rod!  I fought it for a bit and as I was bringing it over towards Bob, so he could net it, the line snapped and...gone. Cool moment!

Around 10:30a, the Occoquan Police (in a jet ski) came by and said that blasting was about to start. We were already moving out in hopes of not getting in too much trouble. But he was a great guy and we chatted a bit. We even ran into him at Brickmaker's later.

He said that the blasting would happen at 11:15a so we fished below and it was slooooow. Bob did catch one to put him at 25-11.

By 11:40a, they were not quite done and I lost interest in going back up. Plus, I was hungry since Bob kept talking about the Brat all morning!

Lunch, as usual, was good!





So...was this the last of it? Are we shadded out? We shall see....

All I know is that I had a great time unhooking most of Bob's fish! And we did much better than 23 shad. Heck, Bob beat that himself!