For sure a fishing a shad kill is great fun, but it can also be very frustrating at times.
I can only give you further advice here for what we deal with at Bull shoals dam, and fishing for stripers on the lakes, as we have no stripers in the river as you guys in TN do.
Rods for trout. Hook a 10lb plus Brown and you will realise in a hurry what a fish like that is capable of , even worse if we are running very high water.
If you do not have a rod with enough stopping power the odds are you will loose the fish, as they will run to the river bed and tangle the fly line or leader around rock structure, or here in the case of having to use bar bless hooks twist and turn and free themselves.
I prefer overall a 6 or7 weight rod, that does not have a fast action, and the reason why is that most of the time, the most effective way to catch those fish is with a fly that is fished dead drift, be it on the surface or below, with a dry line and a very long leader, may be as much as 15ft, believe me a long leader makes a great deal of difference in so far as how your fly animates, also the fly line is way less visible than it would be on a regular 9ft leader.
As a rule l will also be fishing at least 10lb BS leaders.
Flies may be from 1 to 4 ins, and that also can make a great deal of difference. Some day they will take large flies, others only small flies, you have to figure it out at the time.
And the right fly as those fish can become very selective at times.
The trout here are very sensitive to seeing the artificial move downstream at the same pace as the current flow.
If the rod used has a fast action you may well reduce your effective hook ups.
For the reason that you will cause the hook set to be way too fast and pull the fly away from the fish, often they take a surface fished fly kind of like a dry, they simply rise to the fly and take it real gentle, in fact l will see more fish lost because of fast hook sets, than fish well hooked, in the case of trout.
You either pull the fly away from the fish or tear the hook out.
I can only speak here again for the White river, that dead drift methods account for more trout hooked than stripped flies. And l am more than sure the reasons are that shad when the water is running have no choice but to move downstream at the pace of the river, certainly you may see some jerk and twitch around, they are not all dead, but not swimming against or across the current.
In fact if there is big water and many shad l have seen them as far as Rim shoals, 23 miles downstream, still alive.
I have also seen them way below the Norfork and White confluence.
The majority of the shad we see here are threadfin and at times gizzard shad.
I would also add here that if you use a heavy wt fly line, more than a 7, then you are also dealing with fly line drag that also inhibits the means to make a good hook set as you have to drag that line through the surface, and it also due to diameter reduces animation, here again another reason why long leaders are prefered.
I may in fact use a 7wt rod with a 6wt line at times, as a rule distance is not a deal here on the river when fishing shad kills, anything from 20 to 50ft, often it is the relative angle you fish as the boat is drifting that matters.
Stripers.
Those l have fished for many times on the Norfork lake, here again both Dave Whitlock and l prefer to fish a surface fished fly, and one with little movement, may be a little twitch now and again. I have watched those stripers back off when the fly was animated in such a way as it caused a surface noise or undue movement.
For these guys l prefer at least a 7wt and at times a 8, for the reasons that often long range casting is need to reach the fish, and secondly dealing with a large fish when hooked.
We do not have to use barb less hooks here on the lake so that of course helps big time to maintain a good hook hold.
The deal is simply to be within the zone those fish are feeding and busting up on the shad, you may only get one or two shots at times here.
I have hooked and lost some huge fish here on the lake, for the reason they screw you up in brush or whatever else they can find to run into.
The smaller hybrids from 2 to 10 are a little different to the 20lb plus guys.
Davy.
