Shad Trickling in Sacramento River

My dad, my brother and I got an opportunity to check out the Shad scene in the Sacramento River last Friday, April 17th.  We launched at Garcia Bend Park and proceeded down river to the Freeport Bridge.  We anchored at 7:30 AM, next to three existing boats.  A few minutes later, another boat came and anchored between the third boat and our boat.  The new arrival was comfortable within three feet from our boat.  I could have hopped over to his boat if I wanted to :-)  The new arrival told us he fished yesterday in the same spot and boated 12 shad.  It's good to know that we were next to fishermen who knew what they were doing.  The captain of the third boat told us that the shad action doesn't start until 8 AM.

Sure enough, at 8 AM we had the first take down.  Amazing!  However, we were napping and did not set the hook.  So we missed it.  Between 8-11 AM, there were a total of a dozen shad boated among the five boats :-(  We managed to land a 6-inch striped bass and one shad for the day.  We called it a day early and got home for a late lunch.

The shad rig:

The third and fourth boat had a total of seven fishing poles out.  They used a 4-foot leader with a triple swivel: one end went to the main line, the other had an 1-oz sinker at the bottom of the 4-foot leader, and the third was tied with a chartreuse 1/32 oz. grub at 3.5-foot out.  They were the most successful of the five boats.

At 7:30 AM.  How many fishing poles are there?

Upstream is the Freeport Bridge.

Downstream

 

The shad that saved us from being skunk :-)