Let's talk about SHAD !

[AndyS]

I've been freshwater fishing my whole life and had only heard about shad but never gave the fish a try. It was only a few years ago I caught my first shad, I was on a float trip on the upper Delaware river in late April.
Pound for pound the fish is amazing !! Poor mans salmon.
A few years ago a buddy of mine handed me a shad dart, a big one, like 1/4 oz., chartruse. I asked him what do I do with this, he said just cast it out and reel it in like a spinner. I came down to the lower Raritan river and started tossing the dart and doing what I was told, soon enough I was tied into a big shad. Before catching shad I thought they were small fish around 12 or 14 inches long, WOW, these things average 5 and 6 pounds, some even bigger !! Drag smokers. If you get tied into a "HOT" shad, HANG ON.
Here is what little I know about shad:
April and May are the best months on both the Raritan and Delaware rivers.
They swim in large schools, one minute you have nothing, the next you have 50 or 60 going by.
They swim hard during the day and rest in the deeper slower pools at night.
I think the males come up river first.
A fish that can be caught easily from shore.

I've seen guys add a bit of glow Mister Twisters to the back of the shad darts.
Again, I practice CPR with shad (catch, photograph, release)
As I write this there is a pending moratorium on shad fishing in the Raritan river, so far I have seen as many as 7 guys fishing for shad on the Raritan, that is on the high side, and all C&R.

Let me know what you think, most is pretty cut and dry which makes this fish even more attractive.