Flyfishing for Shad

I spent the weekend fly-fishing on the Potomac River right out from Georgetown University. I convinced Rob Wood to come down Friday night and spend the day fishing with Bobby Harrington and me. So he packed his family up and came down. We got up early Saturday morning and headed over to Fletchers Boat House to get our row boats and licenses. We were lucky and got the last 2 boats Fletchers had.

Fishing in the morning was a little slow, and it took us a while to figure out the proper technique. Once we did, the shad started coming in. Rob and I hit a few doubles in the morning which kept it exciting.

Mike and Rob bringing in doubles!

The beautiful shad of the potomac

Unfortunately, Rob had to take off a little after lunch; but Bobby and I stayed out, and ended up glad we did. Bobby and I hit 7 doubles in the afternoon, which means we both had fish on at the same time. The fishing was incredible. Shad are a very tough fish and always put up a good fight. Their underbelly is often so sharp and pointed it feels like it could cut you. There are 2 types of Shad: Hickory and American. The Americans are the gold prize of shad. We caught mostly Hickory, but got lucky and hit a few Americans as well. I think we all caught one or two Americans, but Bobby caught the fish of the day towards the end of the day. This Shad was like an NFL football; it was huge.

Bobby and his big American Shad

Okay, maybe it wasn’t the biggest fish of the weekend, I guess this fish was…

Huge Striper from the Potomac

This is a fish of a lifetime, so I will spare all of you details on how it was caught....It was gigantic and very heavy. Some day when i have more time I will tell the story! Some day....

All in all, it was a great weekend and I had a great time spending time with Bobby and Rob. We'll get them again next weekend!