May 16 and 17

Spent saturday and sunday morning checking every shad spot on the river I know of and even tried a few new ones and found atleast a few fish at each one. There are not huge schools yet but each spot seems to hold a few fish. The most caught at one spot I heard of was about 12-14. If you move around and hit different spots or get luck and a big school moves through your spot you can rack some numbers. Most fish are coming on 250-300grain heads and flies with a ton of color...I am never one to believe there is a secret shad fly...the secret is putting it infront of a fish I think.

The water is still stained but fish don't seem to mind. I found some nice smallies in a few back waters but nothing red hot on the smallie bight. The flats are staring to clear up for carp but still not clear enough to fish for them. Found a few but by the time I saw them I was to close. LMB are off the beds and on the feed. Good numbers of bait, small bluegills, and other assorted fish are moving around the sloughs and LMB are chasing bait in the evening. There are a few stripers around but hard to tempt them with a clouser when they could eat a shad.