equity line of credit: {Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders} Fwd: NCC-TU 2016 Shad Report #2

Sunday, March 13, 2016

{Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders} Fwd: NCC-TU 2016 Shad Report #2

If you don't get these Shad reports, make sure to sign up with NCC-TU by emailing contact@ncc-tu.org with the subject line "SHAD".

To further highlight the importance of the work Friends of Fletcher's Cove is trying to complete, check out the picture of siltation in the cove.

Dalton

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: National Capital Chapter Trout Unlimited <info.ncc@ncc-tu.org>
Date: Sunday, March 13, 2016
Subject: NCC-TU 2016 Shad Report #2
To: daltonbterrell@gmail.com

Having trouble viewing this email? www.ncc-tu.org

Visit OUR WEBSITE About Contact OUTINGS Meetings

NCC-TU 2016 Shad Report #2

An Unseasonable Start

The early warm weather, combined with a prolonged dry spell, caused Potomac River water temperatures to reach April levels by Friday afternoon. It was time to ignore the calendar and head down to the river. Drawn by a familiar yet mysterious urge, a few of us appeared on the bank just upstream from Fletcher's Cove. I was just looking. Despite a lack of swirling current in the low, summer-like flow, conditions felt right for hickory shad to strike. As it turned out, a single American shad nearly beat them to it.

Suffering from the winter doldrums, Douglas Romaine had been posting first shad predictions on the Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders (TPFR) forum since mid-February. Tongue firmly in cheek, he graphed and analyzed weather, river and fishing data from over the years to ascertain a certain date, March 19, for the first hickory shad catch. Then, like a good scientist -- he's an energy consultant with Siemens -- Doug attempted to disprove his theory on Friday the 11th. As a reward for his efforts, he promptly caught a small hickory shad after just ten minutes of fishing. But there was a problem: When I found him alone along the river a short time later Doug had no picture to show me. After wasting time going to the wrong location to pick up his Rock and Roll Marathon bib, he had quickly changed clothes and left the house with his phone still on the dresser. Now his catch could not be verified by one of the self-proclaimed arbiters of first shad catches, or anyone at TPFR for that matter. I decided to wait for him to catch a second shad to confirm the first.

So it was that I ran back to the house to pick up my son Derek's old spinning rod. If I was going to hang around to confirm Doug's catch, it made sense to take some casts at the same time. Just minutes after my return I felt a familiar tug and some violent head thrashing from a fish that was not a hickory shad. The last shore fishing for shad I had done was on the Delaware last May, and this felt the same. Out of the shallow water appeared a flash of white, a small buck, the first American shad of the year. It came four days earlier than in 2012 and a month earlier than when I fished for shad as a kid. It is the earliest catch on hook and line ever seen at Fletcher's.

In the past quarter of a century the Potomac hickory shad run has revived naturally from scant to stupendous. As in any other river along the east coast, hickories have always arrived before the larger Americans. This year the shad world nearly turned upside down. Blame it on El Niño or climate change generally, but thank Doug Romaine for helping to maintain the natural order. He landed his fish about seventy minutes before mine.

As is the tradition, this season starts with a strong showing from the Boathouse staff. Alex Binsted, seen above, followed Doug a couple of hours later with the first hickory shad caught on spinning gear and Chris Montgomery matched my American shad catch on Saturday. Doug's hickory was taken on a fly rod but we're still looking for the first such American shad. Perhaps Bob Smith will beat me to it and claim that prize when he goes out in a boat with Alex today. Break a leg, Bob!

Speaking of the Fletcher's Cove boats, my heart sank (again) when I arrived down there on Friday. Mild northwest winds combined with lower than normal river flow to create an extremely low tide. Rental boats are not in the water yet but would have been useless with the channel to the river as severely restricted as I found it. Behind the dock the fresh layer of silt left behind by the post-blizzard flood was fully revealed. The main dock section now tilts unacceptably on the mud under such conditions. A similar situation brought the fishing community together last winter to save continued access to the river but there is so much more to do. Visit friendsoffletcherscove.org and the links provided there to learn about the serious problems with siltation caused by a landform constructed just north of the Cove in the 1960's. If you have not already done so, please go to the C&O Canal Trust donation page to help jumpstart the funding necessary to save the Cove for the long term. You can also help by coming out to the Beer Tie event tomorrow evening sponsored by the Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders. There are two nice fly rods among the many prizes in their raffle and all proceeds will go to Friends of Fletcher's Cove. I will see you there!

Mark Binsted

Vice President NCC-TU

Sandy Burk, author of "Let the River Run Silver Again," with a nice American shad.

"Just as the sacred cod of Massachusetts is the accepted emblem of the Bay State, so the shad may rightly be considered the piscatorial representative of the states bordering the Chesapeake." - Rachel Carson, Baltimore Sun, 1936.

GET READY FOR OUTINGS

This season, we will have outings to our favorite fishing venues in the mid-Atlantic region. Here is our tentative schedule: May--trout fishing in Big Hunting Creek, June--overnight at Graves Mountain Lodge to fish the Rapidan and other Shenandoah National Park streams, July--smallmouth fishing in the Shenandoah River, August--trout fishing in Big Spring by day and the white fly hatch in the Yellow Breeches by night, September--trout in the Gunpowder, November--steelhead in Elk Creek. Please direct questions and suggestions to: John Graebner at jgraebner13@gmail.com or phone him at 202-251-0479.

David Policansky with a nice hickory shad, one of the multitude he caught that day at Fletcher's Cove.

Join our next outing:

Big Hunting Creek May 7

MEETING LOCATION IN BETHESDA

Come to our next meetings:

*April 13--We are planning a

"science night."

*May 11--Fly Fishing 101 at Orvis Bethesda

Our March Chapter Meeting, and all monthly meetings, are held on the second Wednesday of the month at the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Center. For May 11, we will meet in the Orvis Bethesda store at 7000 Wisconsin Avenue. At our regular Chapter meetings, the social hour is at 7:30, and the speaker program begins at 8:00. We hope to see you there!

Sincerely,