Smallmouth Crush on the Delaware

[Broad Bill]

Originally Posted by thmyorke1

I could have sworn i saw some shad (like 8-10 inch) swimming fast around one of the slower/weedy edges. Couldnt get a good glimpse of them but definitely had the forked tail and oval body shape.

8-10" for this year's YOY juvenile shad would be too big for shad. There's a number of different shad/herring species in the Delaware, that's probably what you saw. Large schools of bait fish skipping along the surface around 2 inches long at this stage would most likely be shad which is probably what you saw on the surface.

I would think some of the smallmouths you caught would have been spitting up shad as I'm sure they're gorging themselves on them.