Spey Casting for Shad

Dan and Richard drove a long way to work on their spey casting. We met at a local reservoir with abundance of casting room.We started out with the switch rods then moved on to the shorter custom two handed rods. They practiced their casting with all the different Skagit shooting head setups and certainly made much progress over 2 hours. We decided to hit the river and to apply what they were practicing on with some shad fishing.

Rods rigged for spey casting!

Dan having a great day for his first time shad fishing.

We arrived at our destination and we wasted no time on getting the two shorter rods ready for the water. We waded in the river and I positioned  Dan and Richard at different parts of the run. Within a few cast, Dan's rod was bent!  He kept tension on the fish which is critical and fought the fish well in the fast flowing current. We landed his first American Shad within minutes. We were cheering and high fiving! It was such a satisfying moment for all of us. 

I walked down to where Richard was and see what he was up to. He made a cast and let his fly drift down the river along with some strips. BAM! His rod was bent, but the fish quickly spit out the fly. The anticipation when the fish grabs the fly is very addicting.

Richard working with the custom two handed rod for shad.

Dan and Richard are great folks to fish with. They were really interested in learning about spey casting. Those smiles on their face when they know they did everything right to execute an awesome cast in a 16mph wind is priceless. We hooked a good number of fish and landed several. It was an incredible day! On top of that, they learnt another fly fishing method - spey casting!

It was very rewarding for me to share my shad fishing and spey casting experience with Dan and Richard and see how much fun they were having.

Awesome day, guys!