Technically today was a work day for me because I was teaching one of my full day fly fishing seminars. But I love giving these and todays was more special than others. At 7 AM I met the Cape Cod Flyrodders Club on the Chatham Beach and gave a custom course about fly fishing from the beach.
After an hour of teaching we grabbed our rods and headed down the shoreline to apply the things I spoke about. There were 20 of us. The weather was cool and foggy making for an ominous walk.
The Cape Cod club is a group that fishes hard. Most have boats and spend more time in out on the water than from shore. No doubt this is why Bob Lewis brought me in. For the first hour I didn’t fish but rather visited the guys as they were casting. While I was spreading my beach tactics I enjoyed chatting with the guys and found it very interesting to talk about the available species of fish OTHER than the basics like striped bass and bluefish.
It wasn’t easy to keep track of who was who or who was where with the thick fog. Eventually I bumped into Bob on his way back to the parking lot to fire up grills for lunch. He asked me if I ever caught a shad because he just caught one. My answer was no and he told me how far up the beach I should go to try.
On my very first cast I hooked one. But shad have two things that make them hard to land; first of all, extremely soft mouths and the hook tears out easy. They also jump and further shake a weighted fly lose like nothing. I got this first hooked shad almost to hand before he shook the hook.
Seemed like no big deal – Ill get another right? More than an hour went by and I hooked one more and lost him. The other seven fish I hooked I landed but all were schoolie stripers.
The schedule was for all 20 of us to be back at the parking lot at noon for a barbeque before dispersing until my evening presentation. It was 11:30 AM. With a 20 minute walk back it was time to leave. But, I still didn’t have my shad. I gave myself ten more casts – a countdown I often do with myself to get me off the water. On the 3rd cast I connected and landed my first shad. This is the hickory shad (Alosa mediocras). A new species for my list!
That was it for my fishing today but any time I add a new one it’s a memorable day. The hickory shad is a dandy and hard fighter everyone should appreciate. My Baja presentation was a great success and I showed many pics from my trip in May. Its back to NH tomorrow but not before Bob and I will hit the stripers from 4 AM till 9.
I’ll stop fishing when I’m dead!
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