“That’s one reason I like the heavier line,” he said. “There’s a lot of limbs and trees on the bottom in this creek, and hang-ups can take a lot of your lures if you use a lighter line.”
About that time my rig hung something on the bottom, and as you would think, we had to turn around to retrieve it.
“See what I mean?” Bill said as he smiled at me. “I also use the heavier line because we occasionally hook a largemouth or striper, and a ten pound striper will have you tied up all day on that light outfit. I grinned inside as I thought about that possibility!
We were trolling upstream at a land speed slower than a walk. The current was moving downstream at about a fast walking pace. This current and trolling effect put our lines behind the boat as it slowly moved upstream.
Just under the US 80 bridge, Bill hooked up, but the fish came off before we could get a look at it.
Our trolling took us under the bridge and upstream for about 100 yards. We then reeled in and headed downstream to try it again. Past the ramp and about 1000 yards downstream from the bridge, we turned around and started trolling again. We never were out of sight of the launch ramp.
“We fish this area first,” said Bill, “ and then we head upstream as the month moves along”.
Shad will not remain in one area for very long. Remember, they are on a mission, and that mission drives them upstream. River blockages, such as impassible rapids, bars or dams, will, however, cause the shad to stack up in one area. Even a shallow bar or rapid that can be navigated by the fish can mean a pause in their migration. This is an area that can hold good numbers of fish for several days at a time, while they determine the best route over the impasse.
Bill talked about running a boat in the Ogeechee. I had talked about bringing my bass boat, and as it turned out I certainly could have done that. The river was twelve to fifteen feet deep and almost 100 yards wide. But don’t let that fool you.
“I’ve seen the river down so far in this stretch that you could almost cross it without getting wet,” Bill said as we trolled by the ramp again. “You can get a big boat in this year with no problem, but I would be careful running in the river. Lots of floating logs and debris come downstream with high water, and some of them could take a lower unit off a motor.”
He also told me about the changing sand bars. I laughed and talked about sand bars changing in one year versus another. He said, “Worse than that.”
“I have seen bars appear and disappear overnight in some cases. Heavy rains, and a rising river mean that sand and silt will be shifting and moving with the current. It pays to watch where you are going and what you are doing.”
As we trolled a little farther, Bill hooked up again, this time fighting the fish to the net. Not a huge fish as American shad go, it was respectable and went into the ice chest.
I asked Bill about his terminal tackle, and whether he had any preferences. His trolling rig consisted, as did those of the several other boats around us today, of a one-ounce trolling sinker and swivel combination. To the back of the trolling sinker, Bill tied about eighteen inches of line. On the end of this line he attached a pink, one-eighth ounce crappie jig with a chartreuse screw tail. For any of you bass fishermen that aren’t familiar with the coast, a screw tail is what saltwater anglers call a swimming grub. Then he tied another eighteen inches of line to the hook of the jig. On the end of this line he tied a small, silver spoon, one with a #1 hook. The spoon had a short piece of yellow and red hair tied to the hook. My rig was exactly the same, but my spoon had no hair.
“These spoons and jigs come in several sizes and with different colors of hair,” he said. “Some days the fish seem to prefer one color and other days they prefer another.”
“Early in the run, we catch the bucks, meaning the smaller males, on the spoons. As the run progresses into March and April, we tend to catch the row fish, meaning the row laden females, primarily on the jigs.”
The trolling was always upstream. Every boat, sort of in a line up, would troll upstream and under the bridge, then reel in, turn around and run back under the bridge to start trolling upstream again.
Just under the bridge on one pass, I hooked a fish on my ultralight. The drag ran a bit and I fought the fish almost to the side of the boat. At that point, we saw a silver flash and the fish was gone. It seems I had forgotten one of my own rules - the lighter the tackle, the sharper the hook. I had not sharpened the hook on the spoon Bill gave me to use, and as past experience has shown me, a dull hook means a missed fish. If you plan to fish with light tackle, Make sure you have sharp hooks. Four pound test line and the necessary drag setting does not put a lot of pressure on the hook set.
We trolled by Dan in his boat, and he grinned as he held two nice shad for a picture, the larger one a row shad, weighing about 3 lbs.
