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The Ultimate Guide to Shad Fishing

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Nice Shad
American Shad ascend rivers on both the West and East Coasts in the spring months and are an absolute blast to catch on light tackle! While not a super sophisticated fish, there are a few things you need to know to consistently score. Here are some tips and tricks to help you catch a bunch of shad this season. By the way, if you’d like to go on a guided shad fishing trip in the Sacramento area, be sure to click on my website www.theportfisher.com

Getting to Know the American Shad

For the uninitiated, shad are over-grown members of the herring family that spend most of their life in the ocean and then return to freshwater rivers to spawn (like salmon, only most shad don’t die after spawning).

Native to the East Coast, shad were transplanted to the West in the 1800’s and have flourished since. Out West, the Columbia River plays host to the largest runs followed by the Sacramento River and her main tributaries, the American, Feather and Yuba rivers. Back East, shad roam the Atlantic from Florida to Nova Scotia and spawn in many drainages in-between, including the Delaware, Susquehanna, Juniata, Delaware, Schuylkill and Lehigh rivers.

Shad are cool...deep bodied, with silvery flanks and a purple back.

Shad are cool…deep bodied, with silvery flanks and a purple back.

Depending on the location and temperature, the first waves of American Shad arrive sometime April and fishing can last through June and into July in some streams.

Click here to read more…

Will these World Record Fish ever be broken?

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There are a bunch of world record fish that likely will never be broken.

In some cases records will remain safe due to new regulations. Take for example, Joey “Sturgeon King” Pallotta’s 468-pound white sturgeon that he caught out of Benicia, CA back in July of 1983. Since then, fishing regulations governing sturgeon up and down the West Coast include maximum size limits to ensure the big spawner females don’t get taken out of the gene pool.

In other cases, habitat degradation, development, pollution and over-harvest have all but wiped out the ability of some species to reach record class sizes anymore.

From monster great white sharks to Tuna the size of small cars and brook trout as long as your leg, here’s Field & Stream’s list of 15 (most likely) Unbreakable World Records.

Fresh Salmon….from Florida??

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The next time you order salmon in a restaurant, it may come from Florida of all places!

That’s where the new frontier of salmon farming is taking place. A company called Atlantic Sapphire is building a state of the art salmon farm on 20 acres south of Miami in which the fish will be grown in on-land pens. The onshore facility has will feature many tanks that will be cooled to 59 degrees and slowly transition from freshwater to saltwater to mimic the salmon’s natural life cycle.

The entire site will be covered by a 400,000-square-foot roof designed to keep out the sun and withstand hurricane-force winds.

While all that work is being done above ground, the key to the project lies underneath.

Just underground lies the Biscayne Aquifer, a freshwater reservoir from which much of the region extracts its drinking water. Below that is a layer of impermeable clay, followed by a separate layer of saltwater.

Underneath that is another impermeable layer of clay, mud and rock, followed by a region called the “boulder zone.” That porous, cavernous segment is so deep — starting at about 3,000 feet — that many Florida municipalities already pump their wastewater down there.

Atlantic Sapphire hopes to produce 10,000 metric tons of salmon in South Florida by 2020.

Read the whole story HERE

Striper Fishing Report (4/18/18)

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It’s been a really solid couple weeks of striper fishing in the Central Valley. I’ve been mixing it up a lot lately…swimbaits, trolling, minnows and jigging. The water temps in the rivers are still cold thanks to the most recent storm so this fishing is going to hang around for awhile!

If you’d like to get out with me, check out my guide page: www.thesportfisher.com

Here’s a nice 20 pounder from 4-18-18 and some other pics from the last several days…

Southern California water agency votes to fund Twin Delta Tunnels

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On April 10, the disastrous Twin Delta Tunnels Project (Gov. Brown’s “California Water Fix”) took a huge step towards becoming a reality when the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California voted to take a majority stake in the funding of the project.

If built, the Twin Tunnels would, in my opinion, spell doom to the California salmon industry and severely cripple or destroy other fisheries like sturgeon, striped bass, largemouth bass, steelhead and more.

Brown and his allies say the twin pipes would do a far more effective job of fixing the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta’s fragile ecosystem while allowing water to move to the south state more reliably. WOW!

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article208504514.html#storylink=cpyToday was a sad day for the California Delta.

To get caught up on all the details, read Ryan Sabalow’s outstanding article in the Sacramento Bee.

How to Fish Glide Baits for BIG Stripers

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Glide Baits have become extremely popular in recent years. And with good reason: They flat-out catch fish!

They got their start in the world of big bass fishing but striper anglers quickly realized that glide baits were also the ticket for targeting big linesides.

Here are some tips for catching stripers on these deadly lures:

How to Pick a Glide Bait

There are so many companies out there that make quality gliders that it can be a bit overwhelming to try to pick a few out. So, let’s take a look at a few things down here and try to narrow it down a bit.

First off, in my experience, two-piece baits work way better than the multi-segmented kind.

As far as size goes, it really depends on what your goals are. If your only goal is trophy fish, consider going with one of the big 9, 10- or 12-inch baits like the Megabass I Slide 262T Glide,

Megabass I Slide 262T

 

or the even larger Gan Craft Jointed Claw Super Magnum 303.

Gan Craft Jointed Claw Super Magnum 303

These are expensive baits and you won’t get a ton of bites on them, but when you do, chances are they will be really big fish!

 

If you’d rather go a little less expensive, the River2Sea S-Waver 200 is a good bait for under $50.

River2Sea S-Waver

I generally run smaller gliders so I can catch the non-trophies as well. The good news is, big stripers will also munch these baits so you aren’t taking yourself out of the big fish game by using them.

The sky’s the limit here on what you want to spend. Generally, the more you pay the more refined the bait is but that’s not always the case. Some companies put out lesser baits and charge a premium just try to get get in on the action.

If you don’t mind spending the cash, the 5.5″ Gan Craft Jointed Claw Kai 148 (around $65) is deadly…

Glide Baits

Gan Craft Jointed Claw Kai 148

The River2Sea S-Waver in the 168 size is an excellent bait in the $20 range. Also in the less expensive but still effective range is the the Savage Gear Glide Swimmer in either the 5 1/4″ or 6 1/2″ sizes.

Savage Gear Glide Swimmer

Regardless of the bait you choose, be sure that your glider rides balanced in the water. What I mean by that is it shouldn’t be nose or tail heavy and able to stand ups straight without rolling over on its side.

Customization
Some baits come with hooks that clearly weren’t designed to handle big stripers so you may have to change them out to stouter models. The trick is to make sure you don’t adversely affect the lure’s action by adding too much weight. On some lures, I’ll add a second split ring between the lure and the hook to give the treble the ability to rotate nearly 360 degrees — this helps reduce a big fish’s ability to use leverage to twist the hooks out.

If a bait seems to be riding a little to shallow, I will also sometimes add a split-ring and barrel swivel to the nose to give it a little more weight forward attitude.

Glide Bait Colors
The best color for a glide bait is pretty subjective. It depends a lot on water clarity, weather and natural forage. My top three favorites are rainbow trout, bone and white or silver with chartreuse. But again, every water is going to be slightly different. Start with finding out what they main food source is and then expand from there.

How to Fish a Glide Bait

Everyone has their own style for fishing these baits, but for me I find I do best when is all the action is imparted with the reel…not the rod. After the lure hits the water, I may let it sink a bit and then, with the rod tip pointed down, I’ll start retrieving it. Some days, the fish like a straight slow and steady retrieve. When you slow grind the lure in this way, it will slowly slide left and right. More often, however, I’ll also impart some stops and starts to the action as well.

By reeling a crank or two and then pausing, the bait will glide off to one side. Then another couple cranks and a pause will send it drifting off the other direction. Sometimes a steady grind punctuated by a couple speed cranks and a pause is the ticket.

You’ll just have to experiment with the action — the fish will tell you on a given day what the want. What you will find is if you go too dramatic with your stops and starts, the bait will sometimes do a U-turn and the hooks will wrap up in the line.

This is what happens when you do it right!

When you get bit, the key is to stay focused and reel into the fish. If you make a quick haymaker, tuna-tosser hookset, you’ll often jerk the bait away from the striper. Some bites are crushing blows, but more often you’ll feel a quick “tick” or “thump” as the fish sucks the lure in.

Gearing Up

To ensure you impart the proper action to the lure, don’t wear yourself out on the casts and also capitalize on as many bites as possible, using the proper gear for Glide Bait fishing is really important.

Rods
Starting with rods, I like a stick that has enough oomph to cast heavy baits and fight big fish but it also needs a soft enough tip to ensure accurate casts. The top end also needs to be able to “give” when a striper sucks in the bait so she doesn’t feel much resistance.

I use to main rods for this technique: The Douglas LRS C764MF for smaller sized gliders and the Douglas LRS C784F for medium sized ones. You can also check out the Dobyns Rod Champion XP Swimbait series.

One bait rule of thumb to keep in mind is that of your lure twirls through the air like a helicopter, your rod is too still. You know your have the right action when it doesn’t spin through the air.

You get a lot of follows with glide baits…if the fish are following but not committing to the bait, change your retrieve.

Reels
There are a lot of quality choices out there as far as reels go. In general, I like a big 300-size reel with power handles and a solid drag. Some good choices are the Abu Garcia REVO Toro Beast and the Shimano Calcutta D Series In the more affordable range, some big glide bait fans love the Shimano Cardiff 300A for it’s slow retrieve rate.

Line
Line is a pretty subjective topic — everybody has their favorite. I have found that braid with a fluorocarbon leader works great on the smaller sized gliders but if you want to throw the mega-sized ones, straight fluorocarbon is the way to go. With those huge baits, you are likely to snap one off on the cast with braid and mono ends up getting too stretched out.

As far as line goes, I have been using 50- and 65-pound P-Line TCB 8 Teflon Coated 8-Carrier Braid with a 4- to 10-foot P-Line Shinsei on my smaller rigs and straight 20-pound Tactical Fluorocarbon