Re: Shad are in....
Local lore says anything bright & shiny...last year, it was silver w/green, this year, it's brass w/red.
<br />There's a lure called **** Knight: it's a very small (1") very light wobbler/spoon. I've also caught them on any other small flicker-type lure. If you can't find the Knights, try tiny crappie spoons. Some of the lures are so small the hooks don't take; replace them with a #8 or 10 single siwash hook....treble hooks don't seem to work that well (and we pinch down the barb anyway). Make sure the hook is big enough to catch the fish, but not so big that it'll mess up the flicker of the lure. <br />Shad have big, but very tender mouths with lots of bone...seems like hooks come out easy unless very sharp.<br />We prowl the river until we see a lot of activity on the fish finder, then we anchor above them and back bounce down into them using a 3-4 oz of weight on a spliter or 3-way swivel. Last night we even had to go up to 5 oz..the river is really running high and, during out-going tide, really fast (7+ mph). That means lots of action on our lures, but it's kind of nervous seeing large trees coming down river
Skinnywater, don't know if the Sacramento is running fast enough for the above-mentioned lures...if not, you might try any small, bright brass spinner. And I mean small, as in tiny: no more than 1" in size. And bright...did I mention bright?!<br /><br />It's funny...they come in waves and for a while one side of the boat will catch all the fish, then it'll switch over to the other side.<br />But with over 30,000 shad running daily over Bonneville, it's not like there aren't a few fish in the river..... <br /><br />I just previewed this post...Mr. Knight's first name is the diminutive of Richard...
