NorthWest Kayak Anglers
Kayak Fishing => Let's Talk Kayak Fishing => Topic started by: Shin09 on May 24, 2023, 09:54:48 PM
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Anyone fish it in the past week and can comment on the current level? Looking at going Monday
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Don't mean to hijack the thread but I'm curious about this. While trolling the Mult Channel for springers on Friday I saw several shad jumping around.
How do you fish for shad in a kayak? Do you anchor up or can you troll around?
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Don't mean to hijack the thread but I'm curious about this. While trolling the Mult Channel for springers on Friday I saw several shad jumping around.
How do you fish for shad in a kayak? Do you anchor up or can you troll around?
Anchoring up near the mouth of the clackamas in OC is very productive for shad. I also like bank fishing at Bonneville- the current makes every fish feel really big haha.
I use 1 inch grubs on 1/8th jighead (green and pink work great). I use a 3 way swivel- a 4-5 ft dropper with 2-4 oz of weight, and a 4-5 foot leader. If you are not catching then move spots slightly in the river, or change your dropper depth. They definietly school up and maintaincertain areas/depths. 2 Years back i had it dialed in with 2 rods, oe with a 5 ft dropper and my shallower rod at 4ft so i was hitting the same water column. They loved pink jugheads with a green tail. I pulled 50 or so in a few short hours. Great crab bait. Some on the forum love to can it and say its great. I have yet to try it.
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There are a few of us planning on going Friday. Launching out of Clackamette Park. The more, the merrier!
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I have launched from meldrum, its a short paddle/peddle to the shad grounds. Ive mostly fished on the right side of the river near the island. I have never anchored and the current can get quite strong there (gets worse between the mouth of the clack and the bridge). I took a page out of Tyler's (spiltmilk's) boook and got some deep diving crank baits/plugs. If you are not anchored, its pretty hard to hold position and keep lead in place. With the crank bait as long as you are not back drifting it will not get hung up and even if you do drift, the buoyancy of the plug will tend to float it up. They dont have nearly as much drag as "real" diver.
I also saw people doing well trolling between the 205 bridge and the OC bridge.
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There are a few of us planning on going Friday. Launching out of Clackamette Park. The more, the merrier!
What time are you planning to head out? Feeling some sort of sickness coming on that may just have me missing work Friday...
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There are a few of us planning on going Friday. Launching out of Clackamette Park. The more, the merrier!
I envy people can fish on the weekday, although I can get a day off in the next few weeks
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There are a few of us planning on going Friday. Launching out of Clackamette Park. The more, the merrier!
What time are you planning to head out? Feeling some sort of sickness coming on that may just have me missing work Friday...
Meeting up at 0700 and hoping to launch by 0730ish
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A couple of us went out Tuesday night for a few hours and it was great. Mostly males in the 17" range. I think I caught one female but it was small. I caught 8 or 10 pretty quickly and then switched to my fly rod. Only hooked one and didn't land it. My wife caught around 20 on gear.
I didn't really check any data before we left for the river so I don't know what part of the tide cycle we were on, but flows seemed moderate to me, and the water was quite clear. (Of course moderate is relative to this stretch of river, some of which has pretty stiff current.)
I used to anchor for shad in my kayak but once I started catching them trolling I haven't gone back. If you want the absolute most efficient, whack-em-and-stack-em setup, then you'll need to anchor, but I think trolling is more fun and nearly as productive (you just drift off the spot a bit if you have trouble getting them unhooked, etc.). We usually find a line the powerboats aren't interested in that is holding fish and just make passes. When you're searching for fish, zig-zag trolling patterns help. Your fish finder will help but I don't usually take mine anymore - you can find all kinds of good spots where you won't see a lot on the finder.
Trolling allows you to move around more and find lanes and slots where they're piled up, which can shift throughout a session based on tides, sunlight, mood of the fish, etc. It also lets you easily get away from annoying people without re-anchoring. Also, explore and experiment! Last year I was catching them in 8ft. of water on my fly rod against a bank where no one else was fishing - pretty fun.
I know that a lot of folks recommend a diver or large diving plugs rigged as a diver. If that setup works for you then great; I don't prefer it. Another option, that I use, is a 4" salmon spreader. Take a variety of weights, but in that stretch I am usually doing 2-4oz. If you're not getting bit but you see fish on the finder or fish getting caught by others, your dropper length is probably the first variable to adjust. Next would be color of your lure/jig. I've had days where color didn't matter at all, and other days where it was undeniable that color made a difference. Chartreuse and hot pink (and combinations) are the go-to colors for the Gladstone/Oregon City stretch. If you're fishing with friends, start out with different colors and/or different dropper lengths and see who's having success, then rig up similarly. When the water is clear and the sky is bright I start with a pretty short dropper (16-24") and only increase it if I'm not getting bit. That said, I prefer to fish shallower than most folks. Generally, in deeper spots, a longer dropper might make more sense.
Seems like there's a lot of "seaweed" this year so clean your lure/jig off often. I check it every couple of minutes or more often if it feels weird.
Good luck and keep safe, especially if you decide to anchor.
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Report from yesterday...
On the water by 0745ish, current was moving pretty good. I brought an anchor but I never used it. I wished I would of ready Capt's post above before going yesterday but I discovered the zig-zag method by accident. One of the barges that was working on the bridge decided it was leaving and was making its way down past us and I zigged out of the way (just to give him more space) about 10-15 ft. After he went by I zagged back and boom! Fish on! This was my first Shad that I ever caught and what fun! I thought it must be a salmon by the way it took off. I was using my Kokanee setup and it had my pole bent in half and running in every direction. What a blast! After landing it and getting it back in the water, I reset my position and started the zig zag again and sure enough another. I ended up hooking into 3 but lost one at the boat, my son got one. I had missed a couple others too. Soon after my third, my son's steering cable broke and that put an end to our day. All three of my fish and my son's one were caught in about 30-45 mins (it took me an hour or so to figure out the zig-zag method). We were off the water before 11am (including the long pedal up the Clackamas River against the flow). I was using a small silver shad dart with a 1.5 inch chartreuse curly tail grub and 3 ft dropper to 4 oz weight. Fishing in 15-20 ft of water (right in front of the RV park). Lots of pedaling so make sure you're prepared for that!
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I got a few yesterday sitting on anchor just above the mouth of the Clackamas. Nothing like the last time but still just enough fish to keep me planted in the kayak for about an 8 hour session.
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Glad it sounds like everyone got fish and had a good time! Mrs. Redbeard and I spent Friday afternoon working on them and had a great time. She caught her first (and 2nd-4th) shad on the fly and later in the evening we started getting some females (larger) on gear. Always a good day when your arms are tired when you're done!
I'll be curious to see how the rain yesterday affects things but I suspect we should have good shad fishing at least through this week - get out if you can!
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Looks like a good choice for a new photo of the month. Mrs Redbeard had been crushing it with fly gear this year.
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In case anyone still needs a shad fix, there’s still enough around to keep things interesting. At least for this evening anyways. I fished the evening for about 2 hours. Took me about 45 minutes to find them, then could almost count on one fish per pass on the troll. Lost the first one at the kayak, the rest weren’t so lucky!
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That's awesome! I was considering heading out again to look for some big females still hanging around but it doesn't look like I'm going to make it. Fun to hear that they're still around and catchable.
Edit: for anyone that stumbles upon this thread later... The run this year was a tad later than the last few years. In what I would consider a "normal" year you'd be hard pressed to catch a bunch after the 4th of July, IMHO.