Shad Fishing

Boys and Girls, Guys and Gals its that time of year again to get ready to capture "Poor Man's Tarpon". Reports are already coming in of a few shad being caught along the lower Neuse River in the New Bern area.

Medium, medium light or ultra light tackle is acceptable to catch shad. Line in the 6-10 pound mark with spoons, darts and jig/grubs will put them in the boat. Also those that prefer the long pole can bring em in with small clousers, crazy charlies and simular flies

Be sure to check your local regs this year to make sure you are legal. I know along the Neuse river this year you can only keep 1 American (white) shad. You can have a 10 fish limit in combination. So 9 hickories and 1 American. www.ncwildlife.org


Assorted flyrod flies/darts


Shad flyrod spoons


Assorted colored spoons

Nice looking flies Scott, I hope to make it down to the meet and greet on the 9th of March. Hopefully be able to get into some shad then . Also going to try the Lock and damn 1 and 2 this year now that they have the fish weir in on one. I have to get started tying up some Mighty Mighty Speed Darts and my Shad Candy flies.

I am also looking forward to getting a chance to hunt some shad this year! thanks for posting up the pics of the flies you tied. We should try to plan a Meet-and-Greet for some shad fishing!

On the assorted colored spoons I took the hooks off and tied colored feathers to them for added flash and appeal.

I've been threatening to do some shad fishing for the past several years. Maybe, I need to plan a trip to the Neuse. Hopefully, we'll begin to see some better shad travels up the Cape Fear with the fish wier in place this year.

It will be interesting to see how much effect it will have on stripers and shad running up the Cape Fear. Hope they shock it later in the year an see how its doing.