Shad Times on the ol’ River

Here’s a pic of trusty sidekick and deckhand, Reilly, with a jumbo roe shad from the Feather River.

We did a guide trip upriver Tuesday and, on the way home, decided at the last second to drop the boat in below Shanghai Falls and do a little fun fishing. After approximately 1,472 shad in about an hour and a half, Reilly hooked this big hen…his biggest to date. Also a first for me was having to run back to the boat..at his urging…to grab the net and BogaGrip. Can’t say I’ve ever Boga’d a shad before…

After the 200-yard trek across the wet, slippery as snot clay, through the minefield of broken glass and back, the hen weighed in at 6 pounds, which is about as big as they get around here (the state record is slightly more than a pound heavier).

We’d been up since 4 a.m. and were getting a little punchy from being on the boat all day, so we called it quits. The fish were still biting at a rate of every cast, but we were outta energy so we pulled the plug and headed south.

The falls at Shanghai Bend are very cool to see — especially when you consider they’re located on an otherwise flat valley floor. I can only manage a trip there about once a year, however, because I get so bummed out to see how trashed the place gets. There’s garbage everywhere — bottles, cans, line, a million shad jig packages and everything else you can imagine.

Come on, people…how hard is it to pack your trash out? I just don’t get it…