Monthly Archives: March 2019

Shad, spring 2019

Hickory Shad

Hickory Shad

The last couple of years weren’t good for making the trip to Weldon to catch shad on the Roanoke River. Either the water was too high, or too cold, or the few good days didn’t mesh with my schedule, or Sam’s. However, we finally got a beautiful spring day when we could both make it, and the fish were there.

I drove from Emerald Isle and met Sam in Weldon. It’s about a 2 hour 45 minute drive for me, and about 2 hours for Sam coming from Durham. We met at 10am. I brought the Mad River canoe with me, as our plans were to fish from the rocks, and we wanted to get to the far side from the boat ramp. We got in position by 11, and fished until just after 3. The action was steady. We’ve caught more fish some years, but rarely so many big strong ones. We caught fish on orange flies, pink flies, green flies, and even some on shad darts on the spinning rods, too.

Sam with a shad on the line!

Sam with a shad on the line!

Each of us landed 20+ fish, though unusually I caught a few more than Sam 😎

Joel with a nice one!

Joel with a nice one!

The beers were cold, the day warm, the fishing good, and we enjoyed watching the ospreys plucking shad out of the river.

After our arms were tired from catching fish, we loaded up the canoe, ran the rapids, and head back home. A great day…